Wyoming has joined 20 states and the District of Columbia in adopting the English-language-proficiency test of the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment, or WIDA, consortium. Just last month, I reported on this blog that New Mexico had joined WIDA as well.
A few states, such as California and New York, created their own English-proficiency test to use for accountability purposes under the No Child Left Behind Act. But quite a few states with small numbers of ELLs have chosen to adopt WIDA’s test, ACCESS for ELLs, rather than create their own test or purchase one developed by commercial publishers.