ABSTRACT
We live in an era of accountability in which assessment plays a key role. Results on the performance of students in mandated large-scale assessments are the main source of information on which schools are funded or sanctioned and decisions made concerning students’ promotion or retention (Linn, 2003). ’ese accountability trends are especially challenging for teachers and schools who serve Bilingual Learners (BLs). Schools with BL enrollment are required to meet adequate-yearly-progress (AYP) criteria on English pro‹ciency, in addition to content knowledge. ’ese criteria may be unfair because the validity of AYP reporting is threatened by factors that are not properly considered in testing policy. For example, classi‹cations of students as limited English pro‹cient (LEP) are inconsistent due to limitations of tests used to measure English pro‹ciency. Also, the linguistic complexity of tests used to assess content knowledge may aŒect their validity for BLs. Finally, BLs who attain certain level of English pro‹ciency move out from the LEP category, which limits schools’ opportunity to improve AYP English pro‹ciency indicators for LEPs (Abedi, 2004).
