Dr. Elisabeth Valenzuela, associate professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education at New Mexico Highlands University, has been awarded a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to lead a statewide effort to improve how bilingual students are assessed.
The Kellogg Foundation is one of the nation’s leading philanthropic organizations, and its grants are highly competitive, supporting work with clear potential for long-term impact.
The project, Biliteracy Assessments as Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices, focuses on a persistent issue in New Mexico’s bilingual education programs: existing assessments often fail to reflect what students can actually do across languages.
“This work is about getting assessment to match reality,” Valenzuela said. “Bilingual students are developing skills in more than one language, and our systems don’t always account for that in a meaningful way.”
The project brings together Highlands faculty and bilingual educators from across the state to identify and refine practical approaches to assessing biliteracy. The focus is on methods that are already working—or should be—in New Mexico classrooms, with the goal of giving teachers tools they can use immediately and consistently.
That work will lead to a set of shared assessment profiles and resources, along with professional development and a micro-credential that allows educators to build and demonstrate expertise in biliteracy assessment.
The effort builds on Highlands’ long-standing role in preparing educators for New Mexico schools and its direct connection to bilingual classrooms across the state.
Valenzuela said the goal is straightforward: improve how learning is measured so instruction can improve with it.
“If we measure students more accurately, we support them more effectively,” she said. “That’s the work.”