Whatever leadership role you assume, we encourage you to work with others to establish shared goals and expectations for your collaborative efforts. More specifically, we invite you to consider the following anchor questions along with compelling arguments for students, families, and educators and to think about how you might apply them to your context. Ultimately, we invite you to contemplate building collaborative assessment practices that honor multilingual learners and make a commitment to making a culture of collaboration the norm. 

The following anchor questions are based on the seven tenets of collaborative assessment, describing a vision for students, families, and educators (Gottlieb & Honigsfeld, 2025).

1. Do we share and nurture an assets-based pedagogy? 

When we as a community do so, 

• Students will be seen and heard; their gifts and talents will be appreciated and built upon
• Families will be valued for their assets and strengths, not perceived as deficit-ladened
• Educators will intentionally look for what the students can do, where the students have been, and where they are headed in their learning 

2. Do we embrace linguistic and culturally responsive and sustaining education? 

When we as a community do so,

• Students will interact with each other to co-construct and respond to assessment tools that highlight what they know and can do
• Families and educators will develop trusting relationships and respect for each other by recognizing student growth and sharing their achievements

3. Do we value student voice and choice? 

When we as a community do so,

• Students will understand and take ownership of their learning, using multiple modalities and languages to show their knowledge and understanding
• Families will encourage their children to take pride in their identities, advocate for themselves, and share their experiences with peers without fear of bullying or dismissal
• Educators will abandon one-size-fits-all assessment practices that require one correct answer; instead, they will give students options in showing their evidence for learning and how to demonstrate their new learning

4. Do we embrace multilingualism? 

When we as a community do so,

• Students will use all their full linguistic resources to express themselves and interact with others
• Families will know that the languages and cultures of the home and community are honored and sustained
• Educators will develop a stance on the bilingual/multilingual advantage and celebrate their students’ linguistic and cultural wealth

5. Do we understand and respond to the complexities and opportunities of learner variability? 

When we as a community do so,

• Students will feel valued for their unique strengths and preferences as learners,  taking responsibility for their own learning
• Families will feel affirmed that each child has strengths and based on those assets, will be held to the highest possible expectations
• Educators will recognize that every classroom consists of a group of heterogeneous learners and will support all students in reaching their full potential

6. Do we prioritize family engagement? 

When we as a community do so,

• Students’ funds of knowledge and identities, as well as cultural and out-of-school experiences, will be integrated into assessment practices
• Families will engage in dialogic communication and form partnerships with their children’s teachers, other educators, and each other
• Educators will build open, meaningful relationships with families

7. Are we committed to a culture of collaboration among students, families and interest groups?  

When we as a community do so,

• Students will emerge as agents of their own learning: where they are co-creators of their assessment experiences
• Families will understand that instruction and assessment are based on shared decision-making and it is their right to voice their opinions
• Educators will intentionally create collaborative classroom and school communities reflective of a fair assessment system

We invite you to listen to our conversation on our podcast where we further discuss leadership support for collaborative assessment. Ultimately, when we, as educational leaders, honor students, families, and educators, allow their voices to be heard, and welcome collaboration as the norm, we can have collective confidence that we will meet our mutually determined goals. 

References:

Gottlieb, M., & Honigsfeld, A. (2025). Collaborative assessment for multilingual learners and teachers: Pathways to partnerships. Corwin.

Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2019). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management, 40(1), 5–22.

Margo Gottlieb, PhD, is co-founder and lead developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin- Madison. Over the last two decades, she has focused on co-creating language development standards for multiple entities, designing student-centered assessment systems, and crafting linguistically and culturally sustainable curricular frameworks. Dr. Gottlieb has over a100 publications, authoring/co-authoring 20 books on language power, academic languaging, and classroom assessment. Margo is proud to have been recently inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame for Multilingual Education by K12 Summit-NABE.

Andrea Honigsfeld, Ed.D., is a TESOL professor at Molloy University, NY, where she teaches graduate courses related to cultural and linguistic diversity. She is an author/consultant, and sought-after international speaker, whose work primarily focuses on teacher collaboration in support of multilingual learners.  She is the coauthor/coeditor of over 30 books, 11 of them best-sellers.