IPT Test of English Proficiency

The IPT test measures our students’ English proficiencies in three domains (oral, reading and writing). Each year (in the spring) ESOL students are required to complete the IPT so that they can be placed in the appropriate level of ESOL for the following school year.
At the International Student Guidance Office (ISGO) incoming students are given the oral part of the test and (usually) one part of the reading and one part of the writing are administered to determine initial placement. When new students come to your school, you have 30 days to complete the IPT testing for reading and writing.
Workshops will be offered at the ESOL office during the school year for teachers and other staff members to learn how to administer the IPT.

Functional Testing

MSDE requires all students in Maryland who were seniors at the beginning of the 2003-04 school year to pass Functional tests in Math, Reading and Writing. While this policy only affects a small number of ESOL students, schools must be vigilant to make sure all eligible students have been given each Functional test which they must pass to graduate.

ELL Committees and ELL Committee Report Form

Another MSDE requirement is that all ELL’s (English Language Learners) in grades 2-12 (Kindergarten and First Graders do not need an ELL plan) must have a ELL Committee convened to discuss testing and instructional issues and accommodations, if any, that will be used for the student during the school year.

At minimum, the ELL committee is staffed by:
• the ESOL teacher or ESOL Chairperson
• an Administrator
• the Testing Coordinator
  

Other staff members may also be included, such as the Reading teacher/specialist, and the mainstream classroom teacher(s). Parents should be invited to the meeting, but are not required to attend. Parents must, however, be informed about the decisions made at the ELL committee regarding their children and verify via signature that they agree to and understand the decisions of the committee.
The ELL committee will decide about instructional and testing accommodations for each student and will use the ELL Committee Report Form to document the decisions that were made.
If accommodations are to be given, MSDE requires that the accommodations be used on a regular basis ALL YEAR LONG, not just for a particular state mandated test. For example, if the committee decides that the student should be allowed to use a bi-lingual dictionary during testing, the bi-lingual dictionary should be used for all (or most) of the teacher-made tests as well as the state mandated tests.
The ELL committee administrator is needed because testing accommodations also become a staffing issue. This is especially true when the accommodation requires a staff member to sit with the student one-on-one during the test administration. For example, “dictated response” is an accommodation that involves a staff member writing down the response of the student who is dictating the answer.
ELL committees should be convened as early in the school year as possible so that all of them can be completed by the end of first semester (January). It is especially important to have them completed for students that you suspect should be “Exempted” (not required to take) selected Benchmark tests that may be administered by the county during the year.

Benchmark Testing

During the school year the county will administer several benchmark tests to determine how well students are progressing. The benchmark tests are usually given for math and reading, but others may also be given. The consideration for ESOL students is whether or not the score obtained from the benchmark test is going to be meaningful and/or useful for instructional purposes. If a student has little or no
English proficiency, the benchmark test result for reading in English will not offer any information about the student’s abilities that is not already known and may cause the student to become very frustrated. On the other hand, a math benchmark test (that does not pose as much of an English challenge) might result in some useful information about the student’s math abilities. Therefore, each student must be considered individually (via the ELL committee process) to determine if the student should take the benchmark test(s) or be exempted. In some cases, the county administrators will advise us about who may or may not be exempted from the benchmark tests.

Maryland State Assessments (MSA’s)

MSDE, in following the No Child Left Behind laws, requires that all students (ESOL included) must take a MSA Reading test and a MSA Math test in grades 3-8, and a MSA Reading test at grade 10 along with a Geometry High School Assessment. The only exemptions allowed are for those students who have been enrolled in a US school (not necessarily just PG county) for less than one year since the administration of the previous year’s MSA test. All other students must take these tests.
ESOL students may be given accommodations, however, as deemed necessary by the ELL committees.

High School Assessments

Another MSDE requirement is that all students (ESOL included) must “take” (passing the tests will be a graduation requirement starting with the 9th graders who enter high school in the 2005-06 school year – graduating class of 2009) four High School Assessments at the completion of each of the following high school courses (Algebra 1 and Geometry must be taken in middle school if the student is enrolled in those courses at the school):

• English 9 or Transitional English
• Biology
• Algebra 1
• Local, State and National Government

Accommodations are allowed for these tests.