PRESS RELEASES
Paige Announces $17 Million in Grants to Help States Develop Assessments under NCLB
Archived Information


FOR RELEASE:
February 12, 2003		 News Media Contact: Melinda Malico
(202) 401-1576
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today announced $17 million in new grants to fund projects that will help improve the quality of assessment instruments and systems used by states to measure the achievement of all students--especially students with disabilities and those with limited English proficiency--under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The grants are funded from the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Fiscal Year 2002 budget.

Because of the critical importance of the state assessments to gauge state, school district, school and student progress toward state standards, the U.S. Department of Education is providing substantial funding to cover the costs of testing, Paige said. ED provided $370 million in state assessment formula grants to all state education agencies (SEAs) last summer (details available at: http://www.ed.gov/about/ overview/budget/statetables/index.html), and President Bush has requested $387 million for assessments in FY 2003 and $390 million for FY 2004. All told, by FY 2004, states and other entities will have received nearly $1.2 billion in support for assessments.

These proposals reflect states' serious and substantive attention to complex assessment issues," said U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. "Through these grants, and the $370 million in grants awarded this summer, the Department is providing substantial financial support for important assessment projects. These projects address the most critical needs faced by states as they implement the assessment and accountability requirements of No Child Left Behind."

The grants are all going to consortia of SEAs and other organizations, but individual SEAs were also eligible to apply. Each consortium will collaborate with institutions of higher education, research institutions or other organizations to improve the quality, validity and reliability of state academic assessments--even beyond the requirements in NCLB.

The funded projects focus on enhancement of assessments of students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency. Four projects address the assessment of English proficiency, two focus on appropriate test design and accommodations for LEP students, one project examines appropriate accommodations for special education students, one aims to improve the technical quality of alternate assessments for students with severe disabilities, and one project will enhance state capacity to evaluate and document the alignment between state standards and state assessments.

The grants also enable consortia of states or individual states to:

  • measure student achievement using multiple measures of student academic achievement from multiple sources;
  • chart student progress over time; or
  • evaluate student academic achievement through the development of comprehensive academic assessment instruments, such as performance- and technology-based academic assessment.

Under NCLB, states design and adopt their own state assessments, which must be aligned with state standards. The assessments provide parents and educators with information about how well each child is doing in school and whether schools are making adequate yearly progress toward state standards.

The grants are authorized under NCLB, Title VI, Subpart 1, Section 6112: Enhanced Assessment Instruments. For more information about the grant program, go to: http://www.ed.gov/programs/eag/index.html.

A description of each project, as well as the collaborating states and groups and grant amounts, follows.

LEAD STATE CONTACT GRANT AMOUNT
Utah Director of Evaluation & Assessment
801-538-7810		 $1,842,893
Collaborators: Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Wyoming & North Dakota
The project aims to develop a series of assessments of English language proficiency at four levels (K-3; 4-6; 7-9; 10-12) to enable teachers diagnose the proficiency level of English language learners (ELLs).
Rhode Island Todd Flaherty, deputy commissioner
401-222-4600		 $1,788,356
Collaborators: Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont
The project will build upon an existing collaboration among Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont and will help compare progress across states and combine resources to develop the highest quality assessments. States will examine the impact of computer-based testing accommodations on the validity of test scores for students with and without special needs, and train teachers to create and use the assessments.
South Carolina Inez Tenenbaum, superintendent
803-734-8492		 $1,719,821
Collaborators: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Austin Independent School District, The Council of Chief State School Officers, District of Columbia Public Schools, Maryland & North Carolina
The project will help gather valid information about ELLs' academic knowledge and skills, and different types accommodations that can match students with the proper accommodations.
Oklahoma Sandy Garrett, superintendent
405-521-4885		 $1,442,453
Collaborators: Alabama, California, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Wyoming, West Virginia & Wisconsin
The project will work to expand and automate a process for judging the alignment of assessments with content standards, serve students with disabilities and help link assessments across grades. The alignment process system will be available on a CD-ROM that can be readily distributed to states to increase the use of the alignment tool in assessment development and verification.
Nevada Sharyn Peal, project director
775-687-9212		 $2,266,506
Collaborators: Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas & West Virginia
The project will help states implement assessments to measure the annual growth of English language development in speaking, listening, reading and writing. The project will produce test forms and an item bank from which states can draw to create test forms that reflect local needs and characteristics, and will help states predict ELLs' readiness for English language assessment.
Pennsylvania Vickie Phillips, education secretary-designee
717-787-5820		 $1,810,567
Collaborators: Maryland, Michigan & Tennessee
This project is designed to help states assess ELLs by analyzing state standards, establishing content benchmarks and developing standards-based assessments drawn from scientific research. The resulting assessments are to be shared with interested states and districts.
Colorado William Windler, grants officer
303-866-6631		 $1,746,023
Collaborators: Iowa, Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, West Virginia & Wyoming
The project will help improve alternative assessments for students with complex disabilities, and the assessment methods will be developed, pilot tested and analyzed during the course of this project.
Wisconsin Tim Boals
608-267-1290		 $2,338,169
Collaborators: Alaska, Delaware & Center for Applied Linguistics, Center for Equity and Excellence in Education, Second Language Acquisition, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction plans to develop and enhance assessment instruments specially designed to measure ELLs' performance and progress in English proficiency and literacy skills based on state standards on reading, writing and language arts and alternate assessments to measure their performance in other academic content areas.
Minnesota Reg Allen, manager, statewide assessments
651-582-8256
or Anne Cutler, manager, learner options
651-582-8628		 $2,013,503
Collaborators: Nevada, North Carolina & Wyoming
This project will develop new tools to measure the progress of ELLs using technology to pilot language assessment, develop new methods to organize, collect and score student assessment data and combine data from multiple measures to improve the evaluation of student progress over time. Staff development will help teachers use assessment results to improve instruction and the methods will be available to other states.

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Last Modified: 12/15/2003