Abstract
Dr. Mikyung Kim Wolf’s edited volume Assessing English Language Proficiency in U.S. K–12 Schools (Routledge, 2020) provides descriptions of various research approaches to understanding English language proficiency testing practices from perspectives that include instrument development, validation, stakeholders (including underrepresented groups), and impacts of policies and/or accountability systems. Myriad events and policies have greatly shaped the current state of English language proficiency tests in Kindergarten–12th grade (K–12) schools, with English and assessment playing powerful roles in the US education system. Although the United States does not have an official language, schools have historically operated as one site to entrench English’s de facto official status further. For example, the residential boarding schools throughout the United States for Indigenous children from the 1860s to the 1960s—concerning language education—erased their languages by forcing children to learn and use only English. In 1918, “The Babel Proclamation” mandated the use of English medium instruction in all forms of schooling (as well as other public and religious spaces) in Iowa—specifically targeting the use of German in relation to World War I. In terms of the use of assessments in schools from the 1920s onward, responses on intelligence tests were often used to argue for the concept of a “bilingual handicap” until the 1960s. In a mix of civil rights movements and responses to then-President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 drew specific attention to providing language education services to English learners (ELs). Current English language proficiency assessments in K–12 public schools in the United States mark a shift from policies that focused mainly on instructional models of bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) education to inclusion in assessment and accountabilities systems.
In this volume, Sato and Thompson (Chapter 2) present recent history from the 1970s and Lau v. Nichols and the Lau Remedies onward, with more specific references to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which is the first federal mandate for the annual use of standardized assessments for ELs in content areas and, specific to this book, English proficiency. They present the current federal policy, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 and the Common Core State Standards, which are used throughout English proficiency assessment today. Their English proficiency assessment overview also describes the current state of assessment for students who are presently referred to in policies as ELs.
As part of the Routledge series “Innovations in Language Learning and Assessment at ETS,” the volume features many chapters by various research scientists at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), often in collaboration with others. To highlight research efforts particular to ETS, 11 of the authors are affiliated with ETS, whereas the other 16 contributors are affiliated with other state or national educational research and/or English proficiency assessment organizations, or with different universities in the United States, or are research consultants. Across the volume are both specific research projects from ETS and ETS partnerships as well as scholarship connected with other affiliations. Following the introduction by Wolf, the book is divided into three sections. Sections I and II focus on contexts and fundamental considerations in addition to empirical research and practical considerations, respectively, in the development of these assessments. The final section of the book looks to future considerations for English proficiency assessment. As a stand-alone book, readers who work in assessment development as graduate students and/or researchers will find the various projects and perspectives presented here informative for English proficiency assessment. Some of the individual chapters may have broader audiences. For example, Chapters 1 (Wolf), 2 (Sato & Thompson), 3 (Bailey & Wolf), and 4 (Kim, Chapman, & Banerjee) provide thorough, detailed descriptions of the current landscape of K–12 English proficiency assessment for ELs that teachers and researchers more broadly interested in this area may find resourceful. Similarly, teacher educators and teachers may be interested in the detailed analysis of the perspectives of teachers on the use of these assessments presented in Chapter 12 (Lopez & García) or considerations around English proficiency assessment of ELs who are also identified with disabilities (Chapter 10, Guzman-Orth, Sova, & Albee). Those working within education policy or evaluation may look to Chapter 13 (Chalhoub-Deville) for connections between accountability systems and validity. Scholars involved with psychometric and stakeholder concerns across assessment development could focus on Chapters 5 (Farnsworth), 6 (Hauck & Pooler), 7 (Wolf, Guzman-Orth, Still, & Winter), 8 (Yoo, Wang, Anderson, & Zilbert), 9 (Baron, Linquanti, & Huang), and 11 (Evanini, Futagi, & Hauck).
One of the strengths of this volume is clarity in presenting different approaches to researching and developing English proficiency assessments. Wolf (Chapter 1) clearly states the aim of the book, including who ELs are understood to be and what key research areas are. Because the following chapters are working within these similar definitions and delineated constraints, the overall book is cohesive and focused, contributing more depth of analysis for these areas than if it were to take a broader scope. That is not to say that the book does not also provide some breadth in its coverage of the topic—notably, Chapters 10, 12, and 13 present studies and concepts that push those in English proficiency assessment to consider students with disabilities, teachers, and institutional and policy systems as part of assessment development.
Another strength of the volume is extending this clarity into various analyses. Yoo, Wang, Anderson, and Zilbert (Chapter 8) provide detailed descriptions of their dimensionality and vertical scaling analyses, in relation to communicating test scores to stakeholders, as a critical part of test development. In comparison, however, the following chapter on validating threshold scores could have benefitted from additional editing to make the content accessible to a broader audience. Additionally, and certainly more a caveat of the field than an issue specific to this book, the volume of acronyms throughout the book can obscure readability.
Overall, this book stands as a clear contribution to understanding the current state of K–12 English proficiency assessments in the United States. It serves as an important reference to include in university libraries and for anyone interested in K–12 English language proficiency assessment development.
