U.S. eases test rules for immigrant kids
Fri Feb 20, 9:40 AM ET Add Top Stories - Chicago Tribune to My Yahoo!
By Tracy Dell'Angela and Jodi S. Cohen, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Darnell Little and Tribune news services contributed to this report
Schools with large populations of immigrant students will soon get some breathing room from testing requirements under reforms announced Thursday by federal and state education officials.
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Educators have complained that the current testing system too often labels as failures children with limited English skills and the schools where they are concentrated. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, schools are held accountable for the test scores of various subgroups of students, including those with limited English skills.
The announcement may help blunt growing criticism of the law, which President Bush (news - web sites) is touting as he seeks re-election. But school officials say it addresses only a fraction of their complaints about the law's requirements and costs.
The federal changes, to take effect this year, will allow schools to exempt all students who are in their first year of attending a school in the U.S. from taking the reading test. These first-year students would take the math test, but schools would not be required to report those scores.
The U.S. Department of Education (news - web sites) also will broaden the definition of limited-English students so that some of the higher achieving students are included. Now, the only students counted in this subgroup are those in bilingual or English-as-a-second-language programs, not those who have transitioned to mainstream classes.
The change would allow schools to keep such children in the limited-English subgroup for up to two years after they are considered proficient in English, a move that is expected to boost the subgroup's scores and give schools more credit for helping them progress.
In East Aurora, the change could be enough to get Rollins Elementary off the federal list of failing schools. The school has seen dramatic gains in test scores, but the performance of its English learners still fell short of state goals, putting the school on the list.
"It makes me angry that my school and my students are considered failures. This should definitely help," Principal Karen Hart said.
Federal education officials said the changes reflect a willingness to respond to protests from states and school districts that the rules for English learners are unreasonable. There are 5.5 million English learners in U.S. schools, and an estimated 169,000 in Illinois. State data show that this population posted the lowest reading scores of all groups measured--with fewer than 15 percent passing the Illinois Standards Achievement Test in reading in grades 5, 8 and 11 last year.
"We are listening to their issues and ideas for improvement as the law continues to be implemented," Education Secretary Rod Paige said in Washington. "Our goal is to provide the maximum flexibility while remaining faithful to the spirit of the law."
In Illinois, officials also announced their intention to replace the Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English reading test with a new assessment by 2006. The test--now given to limited-English students--was widely criticized by bilingual experts because it was designed to measure English acquisition and not reading achievement.
"We're not satisfied with IMAGE, so it will be enhanced to be a more accurate measure of student achievement," said Lynne Curry, director of planning and performance for the Illinois State Board of Education. The state is exploring the possibility of creating achievement tests in Spanish and Polish--which would cover about 90 percent of the state's English learners--but officials acknowledged that could prove controversial.
"At this point we're looking at every option," Curry said.
Even before the federal reforms were announced Thursday, the state board had already decided to broaden its definition of limited-English students. Curry said she expects the changes could be implemented in time for next month's standardized tests.
"We think it will make [the law] more fair," Curry said. "The idea is you are taking out the lower performers and adding back the higher performers. We'll have to see if it's really going to help."
Federal education officials said the changes reflect a practical fix to a common-sense complaint: English learners, as a group, will never show enough math or reading achievement because the group includes only students further behind, not the ones who improve.
"This will be a big help, but it will also continue to emphasize that children are in an accountability system," said Ron Tomalis, a senior adviser to the U.S. Department of Education. "It will ensure they are attaining English skills necessary to achieve and succeed."
Officials at schools with high concentrations of bilingual students welcomed the changes as long overdue and said the new rules will ease the challenges they faced under the No Child Left Behind Act. Some 278 schools statewide had enough English learners to be held accountable for their scores under federal reform rules.
"For a district like ours, [these changes] would be a gigantic benefit," said Angel Rivera, assistant superintendent for English language learners in West Chicago District 33. Two of the district's six grade schools did not meet state standards last year because of the performance of their English learners.
Officials in the Chicago Public Schools system, which has more than 83,000 English learners representing more than 100 native languages, said the changes are helpful but do not address some of the broader problems with the federal law. The biggest impact will be felt at the 15 Chicago schools who met federal testing requirements in every area except in the academic scores of their English learners.
"It's a step in the right direction, but we don't think it's enough," said Xavier Botana, director of the district's No Child Left Behind programs. "They [federal officials] are just extending to other states what Illinois has already proposed."
Gregg Crocker, principal of Robert Frost Elementary School in Mt. Prospect, was pleased that the scores of first-year students would not be counted but still feels the law is deeply flawed.
At Frost, three classes are dedicated to Polish speakers and nine classes to Spanish speakers. About 15 percent of Frost's limited-English students passed the reading test and 23 percent passed the math test last year, and Crocker said it's unfair that those students' scores negatively affect the school's image.
"I get questions [from community residents] about why my scores aren't as high as Northbrook and Buffalo Grove," he said. "When I explain that three out of four of our students speak Spanish or Polish at home, they don't have a lot of interest in listening."
The old testing requirements were especially unfair for the newest immigrants, said Mary Lee Borrero, principal of Glen Flora Elementary School in Waukegan. The changes should help improve test scores at Glen Flora, where half of its classrooms are devoted to English learners. Some 27 percent of these students passed reading tests while 40 percent met math goals last year.
"This is more realistic," Borrero said. "In their first year here, it is not only a new language but a whole new culture. It's a big shock."
