Mountain West Consortium Update

In 2003, the Mountain West Assessment Consortium was awarded a federal grant through the Enhanced Assessment Instruments Competitive Grant Program of the USDOE to develop an English language proficiency assessment. The purpose of this project is to improve the instruction and assessment currently provided for English language learners. This population encompasses over 350,000 students in grades K-12 across the member states, about one-tenth of the national total.

Pilot Testing began on March 1, 2004. From the ten states in the Mountain West consortium, a total of 106 educators and 535 students participated in this process. As we began the pilot testing window (March 1-12), the Measured Progress phone lines were open until late in the day to accommodate teachers who called with questions after their school hours. Overall, the testing went off without much difficulty and the teachers were wonderful! Many have called to thank us for including them and to ask about how to be included in additional stages of assessment development.

This is a fun process and always so enlightening!  The feedback we are getting from educators with regard to test administration has been very helpful. The purpose of our pilot test was to essentially “test the test,” to investigate how best to administer our new assessment.  

A Leadership Team Meeting was held on Monday, April 19 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Two members from each state attended the meeting, which included a presentation by Frances Butler from the University of California, Los Angeles. Some may remember Dr. Butler from last year’s CCSSO Large-Scale Assessment Conference. She will once again join the Mountain West team at the CCSSO Conference in Boston in their presentation on “Assessing English Language Learners: Design/Implementation Issues from the Perspective of the Mountain West” on June 20th at 1:45 P.M.

An Assessment Content Review Meeting was held from Tuesday, April 20, through Friday, April 23, where our test items were reviewed by committees in preparation for the September field test. Four members from each state participated in the meeting, which began with an overview of the item review process by Paula Sable, the Measured Progress lead developer. The educators then broke into grade-range teams and reviewed approximately 360 items per grade range.  While this process is lengthy and often labor intensive, it is also very rewarding, and those who participated found it well worth their time. 

The Final Bias Review took place in May. Bias review materials were mailed to participants on May 17th and were reviewed and returned to Measured Progress.  Participating reviewers were chosen for their strong understanding of the bias issues concerning the second-language populations being assessed.

Welcome New Member States! Michigan joined our consortium in April as an associate member, with full rights to the assessment. It is just wonderful to have Ed Roeber back in the fold. He and his associate, Marilyn Roberts, joined us in Salt Lake City on April 20. 

Nevada is the newest state to join our consortium. They will participate fully in the fall field test.