Is a New English-Proficiency Test Too Hard? Educators and Experts Debate.

Education Week: Roughly 2 million students took ACCESS 2.0 exams this past school year, encountering new standards that aim to raise the bar for English-language proficiency.

In many of the 35 states that belong to the WIDA consortium—and use ACCESS 2.0, the common test it designed to assess students’ language proficiency—scores plummeted under the more demanding requirements.

For school systems large and small, educating more English-learners than they planned for has meant potential budgeting, scheduling, and staffing crises.

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