CAL worked with the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) and the Region 7 Comprehensive Center (R7CC) to conduct a standards correspondence research study examining how well Mississippi’s new English Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards align with and provide the necessary language support for the state’s academic content standards for ELA, Math, and Science.

After examining the content and structure of Mississippi’s standards, CAL facilitated a data collection meeting in Jackson, MS where 40 educators were trained on alignment methodology and then shared their expert judgements on the correspondence between the state’s ELP and academic content standards. Additional correspondence data was also collected in follow-up virtual meetings. After data collection, CAL analyzed the data, wrote methodology memos, provided data tables and results from evaluation surveys, created an outline to support MDE’s written report for U.S. Department of Education Assessment Peer Review, and reviewed and provided feedback on the report.