Testing English-Language Learners in U.S. Schools Report and Workshop Summary (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Workshop Summary
Workshop Summary
Pages 12-29
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From page 12... ...
Of these children, about 45 percent are identified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) , and need special assistance in school.
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From page 13... ...
Native Spanish speakers make up approximately threefourths of the population that has been identified as limited-English proficient (National Center for Education Statistics, 1997:391. As was noted
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From page 14... ...
BOTA member William Taylor began with a focus on Title I of the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) , which he described as "a bill of rights for English-language learners and other poor kids."5 He observed that it explicitly requires states to hold LEP students 5 The ESEA is legislation that extends the authorization of appropriations for educational programs of many kinds originally made under the ESEA of 1965.
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From page 15... ...
Department of Education described the specific implications for assessing LEP students, noting that states are required to identify the languages spoken by students within their systems and "make every effort to develop" assessments that can be used with these students (Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, 20001. They are required to consider either accommodations or native language testing to obtain test scores that are valid for the students for whom they are responsible, depending on the students' needs and the instruction they have received.6 These requirements are qualified by the phrase "to the extent practicable" to allow states some leeway in addressing changing populations of non-native English speakers and other practical concerns.
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From page 16... ...
Department of Education is the federal agency charged with enforcement of civil rights law as it pertains to education. Its policy statements describe the legal standards and court precedents that are relevant to particular issues and are designed to assist policy makers and others in adhering to the law.
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From page 17... ...
Researchers who have studied language acquisition use a variety of methods to measure proficiency with oral and written language. Using these measures as well as case studies of children and adults learning a second language, researchers have noted that while people can often learn basic conversational skills quite quickly, close study of their speech reveals that it typically takes three to five years for them to develop true oral proficiency, to use "the elaborate, syntactically and lexically complex code of the proficient language user" (quoted in Hakuta, Butler, and Witt, 1999:31.
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From page 18... ...
Many educators have also adopted portfolio assessments as a way of monitoring language growth, though most ofthese newer methods are more difficult to standardize and administer than traditional ones, for obvious reasons (National Research Council, 1997:1 171. The key here may not be the particular means by which students' progress is monitored, but the extent to which educators perceive learning spoken and written English as a variable and gradual process rather than one with defined stages and timelines that apply equally to all students.
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From page 19... ...
Arbitrary timelines, it was noted, have little relationship to the learning trajectory students must travel; such cutoffs generally allow little adjustment for individual circumstances and are unlikely to serve all, or even most, students' needs. WHAT ABOUT TESTING' Decisions about what kinds of testing are suitable for particular students or groups of students can seem equally arbitrary but are equally important.
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From page 20... ...
Thus, for example, if a test is needed to determine how much students know about mathematics, its results will be invalid if the test-takers' limited English proficiency prevents them from understanding all of the questions, presenting their answers, or completing the work in the allotted time. In other words, a test cannot provide valid information about a student's knowledge or skills if a language barrier prevents the students from demonstrating what they know and can do.
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From page 21... ...
Measurement experts may have improved their understanding about the testing practices needed to achieve valid results, but a variety of factors place pressure on the educators who decide which students to include on various tests. As was made clear at the workshop, policy makers and administrators know that following best practice guidelines can be complicated in the real world for a variety of reasons.
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From page 22... ...
Without these it can be very difficult to identify the point at which students are ready to participate in a particular test. The methods that are used to identify English-language learners include reviewing registration and enrollment records; conducting home language surveys, interviews, and observations; and using referrals, classroom grades and performance, and test results (National Center for Education Statistics, 1997:361.
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From page 23... ...
In practice, researchers have found that language minority students frequently either do not have access to all of the courses other students do, are placed in less demanding academic tracks, are not taught by teachers trained to work with English-language learners, or are taught by less experienced or able teachers (LaCelle-Peterson and Rivera, 1994, National Research Council, 1999a)
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. The American Educational Research Association also, in a luly 2000 Policy Statement Concerning High Stakes Testing, recommends that "when content standards and associated tests are introduced as a reform to .
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From page 25... ...
. 1 · use or ( ~lctlonarles or glossaries; · reading of questions aloud or allowing students to dictate answers or use a scribe; · assessing in students' native language or allowing students to respond in their native language;1l · allowing students to choose either English or native-language verr sloes or test questions; Hit is important to note that "assessing in students' native language" can mean either administering a "parallel" version of an English language test or administering a different test, in the native language, that targets the same or closely related constructs as the original English version of the test.
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From page 26... ...
As noted above, it can be difficult to disentangle English language skills from other academic skills. Some accommodations have the potential to give the students who are offered them an advantage over native English speakers, though the goal is only to provide an equal chance for all students to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter being assessed.
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From page 27... ...
DIFFERENT APPROACHES States and districts around the country are currently addressing their English-language learners' needs in very different ways, and little formal research has been done to develop a clear national picture of how these students are tested, or how the policies relate to actual practice. Representatives from several jurisdictions described their policies and programs at the workshop.
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From page 28... ...
This program incorporates the SAT-9, a commercially produced Spanish language test, the Spanish Assessment of Basic Education (SABE) , which will provide information about English-language learners' reading, language, and mathematics skills.
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From page 29... ...
She noted also that data collection efforts need to be improved so that the state can better track its English-language learners, and be held accountable for their performance.
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