Who writes the tests?
The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) works with an independent contractor to develop the achievement tests. Test questions are based on Ohios academic content standards which were developed and adopted with input from teachers, families and school personnel across the state. Every question is field-tested in Ohio schools before it can be included in the official tests. Committees of Ohio educators review all test questions and materials before and after the field test. An additional panel of experts reflecting Ohios cultural diversity scrutinizes each question for content that may be offensive or put any group at a disadvantage when answering the question. These panels recommend which questions from the field test should be included on statewide tests and which should be discarded. Only reviewed, field-tested and approved items are used on any of the statewide tests or the practice tests.
Each DLPT5 is developed by a team consisting of two or more speakers of the target language (almost always native speakers of the target language), plus a project manager who is an experienced test developer. In addition, each test has several reviewers, at least one of whom must be a native speaker of English.
