After much deliberation, the governing board for the National Assessment of Educational Progress has approved a policy saying that states should include ELLs in testing who have been in the United States for one year. Under the new policy, states and school districts should aim to include 85 percent of ELLs and students with disabilities in their testing samples, reports my colleague Stephen Sawchuk in a story published at edweek.org today. Stephen also reports that the policy says states and school districts must include 95 percent of all students in NAEP testing.
Regulations for the No Child Left Behind Act require states to include ELLs in their regular state tests in reading after the students have been in U.S. schools for one year. States must, however, give their math tests to ELLs during the first test administration after the students enroll in U.S. schools. But for accountability purposes, states are required to report test scores in reading and math only for ELLs who have taken the tests after being in the United States for a year.