Assessment and Accountability in Language Education Programs: A Guide for Administrators and Teachers
ISBN: 0-9727507-7-0
Publication Date: February 2007
Administrators and teachers need defensible evidence of English language learners’ growth and achievement to drive their decisionmaking!
This groundbreaking book provides a field-tested approach to accountability for ELLs. Gottlieb and Nguyen propose the BASIC model, an acronym for Balanced Assessment and Accountability System, Inclusive and Comprehensive. This model is research-based and grounded in practice. It relies on multiple forms of assessment data from multiple stakeholders that yield a body of evidence on language learners’ language learning and academic achievement.
This user-friendly guide exemplifies how to plan, collect, analyze, and use evidence of students’ language development and academic achievement to:
1. Respond to external accountability requirements
AND
2. Guide classroom instruction
3. Improve programs for language learners
4. Inform school and district level policy making
5. Strengthen advocacy efforts on behalf of languaqe learners
Gottlieb and Nguyen document how teachers and administrators in a linguistically and culturally diverse school district collaborate in the design of an assessment system for their language education programs, and they show us how educators use evidence of student performance to inform their decisions. Central to their work is the pivotal portfolio, something new in the assessment literature. The pivotal portfolio is different from the traditional portfolio in that it follows the student for the length of the student’s participation in the language education program and it contains evidence gathered by collaborating teachers of essential student learning and achievement. The text is brought to life through the voices of teachers, samples from student portfolios, and longitudinal data on program effectiveness.
The book includes worksheets that guide administrators and teachers’ efforts to develop and implement a research-based assessment and accountability system that is appropriate for language education programs (dual language, transitional bilingual, English as a second language/ESL) in their districts and schools.
Ideal for study and implementation by professional learning communities (PLCs) and teacher/administrator leadership teams!
TABLE OF CONTENTS [ click to expand ]
2. The BASIC Model for Language Education Programs
3. Developing a Comprehensive Assessment Framework for Your Language Education Program
4. Using the Pivotal Portfolio to Profile Student Learning
5. Using Evidence to Drive Decision making in Dual Language Programs
6. Using Evidence to Drive Decision making in Transitional Bilingual Programs
7. Developing an Evaluation Framework for Language Education Programs
8. Making It Work in your Language Education Program: Lessons from the Field
W-1. Identifying Internal Influences on Your Language Education Program Design
W-2. Considering Internal Influences on Your Program Design and Implementation
W-2a. Applying Assessment Principles to Your Language Education Programs
W-3. Identifying External Influences on Your Language Education Program and Assessment
WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING [ click to expand ]
Nancy Commins
From the Foreword
This wonderful book could not have appeared at a better time. We are most fortunate that Margo Gottlieb and Diep Nguyen have created a rational and durable framework for orchestrating the competing demands on educators for accountability, program improvement, and appropriate classroom instruction. They delineate the complex issues of assessment in linguistically diverse settings and adeptly address the different dimensions along which educators are asked to evaluate their students and their programs.
More importantly, they provide a blueprint for the creation of a comprehensive assessment system, gained through the application of their ideas in practice. Their work is predicated upon the premise that assessment is done at different levels for different purposes, all of which are valid. There is not a hierarchy in which some are the real or most important assessments, but rather the different dimensions function in a dynamic relationship that is constantly evolving…
Christine Coombe
Comparative Book Review in Language Teacher, 42:1, Cambridge University Press, pp. 135-142.
A clear strength of this volume is the clarity in the presentation of the information and the reader-friendly graphs and charts.
At a time when educators experience the competing demands of accountability, program improvement and appropriate classroom instruction, this volume presents complex assessment issues from a variety of diverse perspectives and offers solutions at all levels.
Research is also at the fore…where Gottlieb & Nguyen draw on empirical evidence to promote their BASIC model. They describe research-based principles of assessment that help define the nature, role, and uses of different kinds of data that might be acquired through formal and informal assessments.
Even though the target audience for the Gottlieb & Nguyen book is administrators and teachers, I feel that it is very accessible for the average classroom teacher. This is helped by the initial features of the chapters ‘Chapter overview’, ‘Guiding questions’ and ‘Key concepts’, and those at the end, ‘Questions for reflection and action’.
F. Scott Walters
Language Policy 7. Springer, pp. 301–303.
Addressed primarily to language teachers and language education program administrators on the school, program, and district levels in the U.S., it offers a language assessment planning and implementation model intended to balance state-mandated assessment-instruments of policy with school-based assessment plans, giving language educators a constructive voice in how they assess their English language learners (ELLs) in the current era of high-stakes accountability in U.S. education.
The book can be used in self-study, but lends itself well to teacher training workshops. Content is adumbrated at the beginning of each chapter by a short ‘‘Overview,’’ ‘‘Guiding Questions,’’ and three ‘‘Key Concepts.’’ The end of each chapter offers ‘‘Questions for Reflection and Action,’’ which mirror and elaborate on the Guiding Questions. There is an Appendix containing eighteen worksheets for educator self-reflection and workshop group discussion. Finally, there is a glossary, a bibliography containing scholarly references as well as references to commercially available language assessments noted in the text, and an index referencing text, tables, and diagrammatic figures.
Another useful feature is the level of generality at which the BASIC model is articulated—not as a whole-cloth approach to be imposed, but as a multifaceted, integrated heuristic applicable to a wide range of language education contexts. Such flexibility, supplemented with concrete examples of implementation (as in Chapters 4, 5, and 6) is a major strength of the book. As such the model may well fall under the category of democratic approaches to assessment in which power is shared among different administrative levels.
The work presents a detailed report of a localized, collaborative, and constructive response to the far-reaching No Child Left Behind Act. The model may also suggest a general framework for language education program analysis, and a way of generating hypotheses regarding policy on the state, district, and program levels.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS [ click to expand ]
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Margo Gottlieb Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized specialist in the design of assessments for English language learners in pre-K-12 settings, the evaluation of language education programs, and the development of English language proficiency standards. She is the Director of Assessment and Evaluation at the Illinois Resource Center and Lead Developer for World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA), a multi-state consortium. Her latest publications include Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges from Language Proficiency to Academic Achievement (2007) and The ELL Assessment Kit (2007). |
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Diep Nguyen Diep Nguyen, Ph.D., is an award winning administrator and practitioners. She is currently the Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services of Des Plaines School District 62 in Illinois. From 1994-2006 she served as the Director of Bilingual/Multicultural Programs of Schaumburg School District 54 in Illinois, the case study featured in this book. She has conducted action-oriented ethnographic studies on the role of bilingual instructional aides and on the perceptions of literacy and bilingual/ESL teachers and community members about the educational needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students. She is a frequent presenter at national and state bilingual and TESOL conferences. |