Maryland and Montana are the latest two states to become members of the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment consortium and will begin administering the consortium’s English-language-proficiency test next school year. The nonprofit group is called WIDA for short.
A spokesman for the consortium sent me an email message with the news. Back in January, Alaska joined WIDA, bringing the membership to 24 states plus the District of Columbia.
WIDA has a track record of attracting states that have smaller numbers of English-language learners. States with large populations of ELLs such as Arizona, California, Florida, New York, and Texas have not gone the WIDA route.