Concluding Remarks

Driven by education policies, large-scale standards-based K-12 ELP assessments in the United States have a significant impact on EL students’ academic paths. To ensure that these assessments are used to promote the intended effects, including equitable education for EL students, high-quality' assessments and empirical bases are needed to support their appropriate use. The present volume contains a collection of selected articles that describe the complicated contexts and the various stakeholders involved in K-12 ELP assessments. Policies and high-stakes use of K-12 ELP assessments create both challenges and opportunities to advance the education and language-testing fields. Current ELP standards and assessments have undergone major paradigm shifts that reflect the academic and disciplinarylanguage proficiency that EL students need in order to access content learning. Nevertheless, more empirical evidence is needed to support current ELP standards and to facilitate both their refinement and their advancement. The chapters in this volume illustrate current undertakings and encourage further work to improve K-12 ELP assessment practices. Language assessments can play a major role in the development of language policies (Menken, 2017; Shohamy, 2007). While U.S. standards-based K-12 ELP assessments are shaped by current policy, they can also help formulate future policies. Shohamy (2007) emphasizes that valid language policies can be developed by using language assessments that incorporate researchbased empirical evidence. I hope that the conceptual and empirical research presented in this volume provides a useful foundation as well as direction for future research to improve practices and policies on K—12 ELP assessment.

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