Virginia County Challenges NCLB LEP Testing PRovision

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

FAIRFAX RESISTS "NO CHILD" PROVISION
IMMIGRANTS' TESTS IN ENGLISH AT ISSUE

Washington Post -- January 26, 2007
by Maria Glod

The Fairfax County School Board last night defied the U.S. Department of 
Education -- and challenged the No Child Left Behind Act -- by declining 
to force thousands of immigrant students to take a federally mandated 
test because local educators think it is unfair.

Fairfax school officials said they will continue to test how well those 
students are learning to read, speak and write English and will report 
those results. But this year they will not, as the federal government 
requires, give the students reading exams that cover the same 
grade-level material as tests taken by peers who are native-English 
speakers.

"It is wrong for our students to take a test they are predisposed to 
fail," said board member Phillip A. Niedzielski-Eichner (Providence). 
"We will continue to test their proficiency twice a year and continue to 
move them forward as quickly as possible. This resolution is not, by any 
stretch, an attempt to shy away from accountability."

The bold step taken in Fairfax, a highly regarded school system that is 
also the nation's 13th-largest, puts Virginia at the forefront of a 
growing debate over the best way to measure the progress of millions of 
students across the country who are learning English as a second 
language. The Harrisonburg school board passed a similar measure, and 
Arlington County school officials are considering such a step.

"This will help build political pressure to find a sensible solution 
where you keep accountability, but you test kids fairly," said John F. 
Jennings, president and chief executive of the District-based Center on 
Education Policy. "Schools are saying it makes no sense to test kids who 
don't understand English. The U.S. Department of Education is saying 
that they should be tested the same way as other students. There has to 
be a third way."

The Virginia Department of Education has asked the federal government to 
allow use of the old test for another year, so there is time to develop 
an alternative. The state is awaiting an answer. Fairfax and other 
localities say that a deferral would be the best short-term solution. 
Across Virginia, about 10,200 students are affected by the change, state 
education officials said. About 4,000 are in Fairfax.

The dispute between Virginia and federal officials, which comes as 
Congress prepares to debate renewal of the five-year-old No Child law, 
began last summer when the U.S. Department of Education found problems 
with the way Virginia and 17 other states test students learning 
English. Often, they said, the exams were not demanding enough.

Testing programs for English learners in Maryland and the District have 
withstood federal scrutiny.

Federal officials say that all students in a given state must be held to 
the same standards regardless of whether English is their native 
language. An Education Department spokesman said that its mandated test 
helps pinpoint areas where students are struggling and identifies 
successful teaching methods. Federal officials also stress that students 
can be allowed accommodations, such as extra time or the use of a 
bilingual dictionary.

Supporters of the federal provision also say that it forces school 
districts to focus on students who need extra help to catch up with 
their classmates. "We don't want English-language learners to be left 
out of education," said Peter Zamora, acting regional counsel for the 
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "If you remove this 
set of standards from the No Child Left Behind accountability system, 
you are removing the incentive to teach them."

Educators in several states, including Virginia, say they agree that 
schools should be held to high standards. But they say that children who 
lack mastery of the language aren't prepared for grade-level exams that 
could include questions about similes and metaphors or imagery in a 
poem. The state instead measures progress such students learning English 
make by using tests that have a range of difficulty. Once students learn 
enough English, usually after a few years, they take the same reading 
tests as their peers.

"It's not like we're trying to escape the law," said Arlington School 
Superintendent Robert G. Smith. "We're trying to escape something that 
represents, in my mind, a fairly reprehensible practice. If a kid reads 
with so little understanding, we're not going to take away anything from 
their responses."

Federal law requires testing every year in reading and math in grades 3 
through 8. It also requires schools to show that groups of high school 
students, including limited-English students and ethnic groups, are 
making progress toward being 100 percent proficient by 2014. The 
government exempts immigrant students who have been in a U.S. school for 
less than a year from taking standard grade-level reading tests.

Prince William County school officials, who passed a resolution 
expressing concern about the tests, plan to give immigrant students the 
federally mandated tests. But teachers will be watching each student and 
will stop those who appear too stumped to continue, said Carol Bass, 
supervisor of the English for Speakers of Other Languages program.

Last night, Fairfax School Board members said that its decision will 
likely mean that many county schools won't meet federal standards under 
the No Child law.

Board member Stephen M. Hunt (At Large), who cast the sole vote against 
the measure on the 12-member board, said he thinks the test scores can 
help educators find areas where instruction can be improved. "You get 
back data on what they are not understanding or not learning," he said.

  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502327.html