New England Compact

Enhanced Assessment

The Enhanced Assessment Project has helped the New England Compact states as they develop large-scale assessments that address the needs of students with disabilities and English language learners who take the regular state assessment. The project worked in three main areas:

Accessibility: The states prioritize universal design in assessment development. This includes the format of the test, the language used to ask questions, and variation in the way that students are asked to respond (e.g., using both multiple-choice and constructed response questions).
Accommodations research: The project conducted five studies on the impact of technology-based accommodations in large-scale assessments for students with disabilities and English-language learners. Among other findings, students with disabilities in one study benefited from computerized systems that read text aloud. In a second study, writing scores of students both with and without disabilities improved when students were allowed to write using the computer.
Professional development: The project has worked with teachers to incorporate grade-level expectations and universal design into their classroom teaching and assessment. Online support materials for teachers to better understand their states’ grade level expectations have been developed and are available.

Click here for research results from the project.
Click here for online professional development support materials for the GLEs

English Language Learners
The New England Compact states have contracted with the WIDA Consortium (http://www.wida.us/), also funded under the federal Department of Education Enhanced Assessment Grants, to develop English Language proficiency standards and an English Language Proficiency assessment.
Under NCLB, students for whom English is not their first language must be assessed both on their English language comprehension and on their content knowledge. The WIDA Consortium has developed English Language Proficiency Standards that are aligned with the content standards from each of the four Compact states (as well as the member states of the WIDA Consortium). The proficiency standards are organized in the following manner:

standards for listening, speaking, reading, and writing
four grade-level clusters: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12
five proficiency levels divided into two tiers (levels 1-3 and levels 3-5)
six areas of English language proficiency:
- school-based language
- content-based language
- academic proficiency for English language arts
- academic proficiency for mathematics
- academic proficiency for science
- academic proficiency for social studies.

The proficiency tests designed from these standards will provide effective assessment of English Language learners.

High School Assessments
Under NCLB, states must administer annual assessments in grades 3-8 and high school. The New England Compact has chosen to address the requirement for a high school assessment by considering broader issues concerning high schools, including current high school reform movements, national organizations that are developing grade span expectations for high school, and local high school models.