English Language Development

• What did my outgoing class of students learn? Did they meet the standards I was teaching
  them?


• What did my incoming class of students learn from last year to this year? Which standards did
  they achieve, and which did they not achieve?


• What are the overall strengths and areas of need in my class’s learning?


• What are the strengths and areas of need in individual’s and groups’ learning?


• What are the strengths and areas of need in my curriculum?


• What are the strengths and areas of need in my instruction?


• Have the improvement strategies I/we put in place worked?
  With data systems, assessment results are aggregated so
  that individual teachers and schools can look for patterns in
  their students’ performance. They are also disaggregated to
  provide information on the relative performance of subgroups
  and the performance of individual students. School and district
  administrators use these assessment results to determine
  which students have and have not met the standards and
  identify the relative strengths and areas of need in curricula
  and programs. Long-cycle assessment results should be
  examined and discussed by teams of educators who sensitively
  analyze outcomes, responsively adjust instructional programs,
  plan professional learning, collaborate, and teach.

Long-cycle assessment results are appropriately used for
system monitoring and accountability; reporting to parents
on their individual child’s achievement; adjustments to programs, curricula and instruction for the
following school year; teachers’ reflection on their instructional practices; and identifying teachers’
professional learning needs. As indicated, results also provide a starting point for students’ teachers
in the following school year, offering a picture of classroom, subgroup, and individual strengths and
weaknesses. Snapshot 8.6 provides a glimpse of these uses of long-cycle assessment.

Snapshot 8.6. Long-Cycle Assessment in Grade Eight

Just before the new school year starts, eighth-grade English teacher Ms. Flora and her

eighth-grade colleagues examine their incoming students’ seventh-grade summative ELA

assessment results to anticipate their students’ learning needs. At the same time, they

examine the prior year’s CELDT results for their incoming EL students, some of whom have

been in U.S. schools for only a couple of years and others for many years, as well as available

data about their literacy proficiency in their primary language. The teachers want to make

sure that they use all available information to design appropriately differentiated instruction for

their students.

Last year’s results suggest students may need considerable support in several areas,

including close and analytic reading skills with respect to literature and informational text and

writing effective arguments. To address weaknesses evident in the seventh-grade summative

assessment results, Ms. Flora pays particular attention to the grade eight literature standards:

(1) Cite textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says

explicitly as well as inferences drawn for the text (RI.7.1), and (2) Compare and contrast the

Long-cycle assessment

results should be examined

and discussed by teams of

educators who sensitively

analyze outcomes,

responsively adjust

instructional programs,

plan professional learning,

collaborate, and teach.

840 | Chapter 8 Assessment