To meet No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Title III requirements, states are mandated to identify and annually administer a standards-based English language proficiency test to all English Language Learners (ELLs) in grades K-12. In order to comply with the NCLB requirement of an annual English Language Proficiency Assessment for ELLs, Kentucky joined the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium in 2006. The WIDA Consortium’s goal is to provide research based assessments, standards and professional development to its member states.
Member states of the WIDA Consortium include: Alabama, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
WIDA provides Kentucky with a placement test called the W-APT (WIDA ACCESS Placement Test) as well as the annual English Proficiency Assessment of ACCESS (Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State) for ELLs.
ACCESS for ELLs is an English language assessment tied to the state’s language proficiency standards with varying stages of second language acquisition. It contains social and academic language contexts. For Title III accountability, ACCESS for ELLs measures annual gains in English language proficiency-Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAOs).