NCEO is working with the Collaborative for the Alternate Assessment of English Language Proficiency (CAAELP) project as the accessibility lead. CAAELP is a federally funded 4-year project (2019–2023) awarded to the Iowa Department of Education, and is a collaboration with nine other states (Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia) and the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Additional partners include Cognia, HumRRO, and CAST. The project will develop an alternate summative English language proficiency assessment for English learners with the most significant cognitive disabilities; it will be based on alternate performance expectations for English language proficiency development. This assessment will be called the Alt ELPA. CAAELP will also develop professional learning about the ELP standards, the Alt ELPA, and related English language development instruction.
As the project’s Accessibility Lead NCEO is:
- leading a team of state participants to develop Alt ELPA participation guidelines
- leading a team of state participants to guide and oversee relevant accessibility, accommodations, and test administration practices of the Alt ELPA
- producing the accessibility manual for the Alt ELPA
- contributing to the writing of the Alt ELPA Directions for Administration
- participating in User Acceptance Testing during pilot and field testing to ensure the test and testing platform conform to specifications
- attending Differential Item Functioning (DIF) reviews