The Wake County Public School System in Raleigh, North Carolina, is a relative newcomer in serving language minority communities. The system's English as a Second Language (ESL) Program officially began in the 1970s, with fewer than 400 Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. By 1998, that number had spiked to over 2,000, with most of the growth occurring during the years 1995-98. Although many areas of the US have a long history with well-defined school policies and programs to accommodate the needs of LEPs, Wake County faced a newly evolving landscape. A loosely organized arrangement had to be transformed into a cohesive and uniform program by which student performance could be measured and documented and the instructional program evaluated. Assessment is unquestionably a hot-button issue, but one that held primacy in the development of a strong model. Hard decisions needed to be made as we grappled with the immediacy of the situation. Why assess? What were our program goals, and how would assessment dovetail with those goals? Where to begin? A catalog of assessment concerns emerged.

Fundamental questions were posed and needed to be addressed.

WHO? Who is eligible for testing? Who should be disqualified? Who tests students for entry into and exit from the program? ESL teachers? Class-room aides? School counselors? Testing and Evaluation people?

WHAT? What skills should be evaluated? What types of assessment instruments are available commercially? What information do the tests yield? What languages do commercial tests come in? Is that an important consideration? If we devised our own teacher-prepared test, how could we assure validity?

WHERE? Should students all be tested in one central location or at individual program sites? Where is there sufficient, quiet, readily available space to accommodate group testing, as well as testing of individual students?

WHEN? When is it appropriate to test? At registration? On the first day of school? After students have settled in? What about students who appear after the start of the school year? Could a weekly testing slot be scheduled to accommodate new students entering the program mid-year? When should exit testing be scheduled? Are there deadlines for submission of test scores?

WHY? Why test? Are we testing for entrance, placement, diagnosis, progress, or grading? Do we need to devise a framework for summative evaluations? Why not glean qualitative information (observation, narratives, performance checklists, etc.) as a basis for making decisions about students and the program?

HOW? How do we evaluate large numbers of students and still maintain uniform procedures among all ESL program sites? How can we transform system-wide assessment results into a more effective program? How could we get teacher input to create an assessment framework that would reflect the collective knowledge, skills, and experience of the staff? Teachers responded overwhelmingly to the creation of a binder containing ESL procedures and guidelines that would address the questions administrators had been asking. Teachers then chose to include the following in what became an invaluable collection of the following assessment essentials:

GUIDELINES AND PROCEDURES - Teachers generated steps they follow at pre-administration, administration, and post-administration points in the testing process. Many initial concerns were addressed here. This rubric would remain as the core regardless of test adoption changes.
SPECIFIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEST CURRENTLY IN USE BY THE ESL PROGRAM - This section includes scoring tables and criteria for entry and exiting.
AN INVENTORY OF TESTING MATERIALS - The forms and levels of the adopted test are described.
PROFICIENCY AND PLACEMENT LEVELS - This includes State of North Carolina English Proficiency Level Descriptions and State testing modifications and exemptions for LEPs, as mandated by the Department of Public Instruction. Other items included: The official ESL exit form, a testing log to record essential data and results for students, lists of additional (optional) testing instruments, testing summary sheet, limits of confidentiality statement, and inter-rater reliability guidelines. The efforts and energies expended by our ESL professionals culminated in a product consonant with their educational precepts, as well as those held by the school system and the community. The ideas pieced together represent a work in progress and as our vision is reshaped to accommodate the dynamics of the changing complexion of the community.

Toby P. Brody, Teacher Trainer and Assessment Consultant, Wake County Public Schools, Raleigh, North Carolina