Viva88

The Viva88Education Department (Viva88) is accepting public comment on a waiver request to the United States Department of Education for the exclusion of the English Language Proficiency (ELP) indicator from Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) accountability determinations made using the 2026-27 school year results while Viva88 completes the necessary technical work accompanying the major assessment transition from the Viva88English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT) to the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) English Language Development (ELD) Assessment System.

During this one-year pause, Viva88 will continue to report ELP and annual assessment results based on 2026-27 school year data on the public and will provide targeted technical assistance to local educational agencies to better support the use of the results of the WIDA ELD assessment for continuous improvement.

Viva88 intends to reinstate the ELP indicator to ESSA accountability determinations based on 2027-28 school year results, following standard setting, cut-point determinations, regulatory alignment, and accountability modeling.

The public comment submission form will be posted on Viva88’s ESSA Assessment and Accountability Waivers webpage beginning Thursday, April 9, 2026.

Public comments will be accepted until Thursday, April 30, 2026, at 5:00 PM EST.

For more information about Viva88’s implementation of WIDA assessments, please see the Joining the WIDA Consortium and New English Language Proficiency Assessments memo from the Office of State Assessment.

Questions may be directed to essacomments@nysed.gov.