Assessment Spotlight, Issue 302

Focusing on the CAASPP System and English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California’s other statewide assessments. For questions related to test administration, coordination, and trainings, visit the CAASPP and ELPAC website .

How Long-Term English Learner Students are Reported

The California Department of Education (CDE) annually publishes data on Long-Term English Learner (LTEL) students through several platforms such as DataQuest and the Test Results for California’s Assessments (TRCA) website . Following the passage of Senate Bill 141 in 2023, the CDE now includes LTEL students as a new student group in the 2024 California School Dashboard.

The LTEL definition for the Dashboard is different from the definitions used in DataQuest and the TRCA website . For more information, please visit the CDE’s LTEL Student web page.

December’s Featured Resource in Tools for Teachers—Let’s Make Sense of Multiplication

This month’s featured Tools for Teachers resource, Let’s Make Sense of Multiplication! (account required), is a Grade 3 lesson designed to help students understand the concept of multiplication and deepen their connections between multiplication contexts, equations, and visual models.

The lesson materials include a ready-to-use slide presentation that engages students in a Notice/Wonder strategy using visual models to represent multiplication. During the lesson activities, students collaborate in teams using a card sort activity to match mathematical models to math phrases and expressions. The lesson concludes with a creative task where students develop their own real-world math story based on a multiplication expression.

This lesson, along with many other standards-aligned lessons, is available in Tools for Teachers. Local educational agency (LEA) staff can obtain a Tools for Teachers account either through self-registration, described in the How to Self-Register for Tools for Teachers flyer(PDF), or through their LEA CAASPP or ELPAC coordinator.

To receive future CAASPP and ELPAC updates and notifications, subscribe to the CAASPP mailing list by sending a blank email message to subscribe-caaspp@mlist.cde.ca.gov. Are you a new subscriber? For previous Assessment Spotlight issues, visit the CDE Assessment Spotlight web page.