Tests = Incentive To Teach? January 29, 2007
Posted by boundtoreact in Uncategorized.trackback
One of the more interesting debates about No Child Left Behind that I ran into reading an article from the January 26, 2007 Washington Post is that of students who are not native-English speakers being held to the same standards as their peers. In Fairfax, Virginia, one of the nation’s largest school systems is going against the federally mandated testing of thousands of immigrant students. The students will continue to be tested by the school, but not with the same grade-level material their native-English speaking peers are being tested with as is the standard for NCLB.
“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.”
I think that demanding the same standards for all students in all schools is simply ignoring how diverse our schools have become. Students who are learning English as a second language may not be able to understand the way tests have been written, and this not only goes for a possible inability to read and write efficiently in English, but perhaps to the cultural bias that so many of our nation’s standardized tests seem to have.
As unreasonable as it may seem to expect the same from those students who are learning English as a second language as native-English speakers, is there a way that these high expectations can actually be beneficial?
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.”
First of all, I have a very big problem with a statement like this because it makes it sound like teachers only teach to prepare students for tests, and if they didn’t have to worry about those funny immigrant students who don’t speak the language so well taking these tests, they could just sit them by themselves in a quiet room and forget about them. As a future teacher, I am a little offended – I’d like to believe that my incentive to teach students couldn’t be taken away by test stipulations. That being said, I will at least give the argument some consideration. Because of these high standards, I think it is reasonable to believe that there are some school districts who will spend more time and money in working with students who speak English as a second language.
I understand both sides of the argument, and I think a happy medium can be found. To have standards ESL students as high as their peers seems unreasonable, but to throw away any expectations of what these students can accomplish is not the solution either. I think the answer lies with devising a set of standards that are specific for ESL students, challenging enough to ensure schools are doing their job in addressing these students needs, yet not so high that they are wasting time taking tests that don’t seem to make any sense to them.
Chris,
This is an interesting article and you set it up for good discussion. I guess I am going to go backwards and first respond to the solution that you presented. As I was reading I was thinking about the same thing, but then I remembered that creating another test and set of standards would take more time. And we all know that in the educational system, time is money, and everything seems to boil down to funding. I do not agree with this sort of philosophy but I find it ironic that it was the first thing I thought about. It is as if the importance of funding has been drilled into our heads, so it is the first thing that we consider. Really, that is quite sad because it makes the issue money, and not what is best for the individual student.
Now that I have covered that rant, I will move on to the content. It does seem very unfair to hold ESL students to the same standards as children that have grown up only speaking English. Sometimes the tests are hard enough for native speaking students, and I couldn’t imagine taking a test in a language that I have yet mastered. This would be incredibly difficult to a person of any age. I liked the comment that you selected by Peter Zamora. Any future teacher should resent the statement. He seems to underestimate the commitment and focus that many teachers hold. The goal is for every child to succeed, whether they are ESL or native speakers. Also, whether or not they are taking the standardized tests to earn money for their school. He is basically saying that because we cannot make money of these students who cannot fufill the NCLB standards than they are not as important to teach as students who can earn the school money.
Overall, I agree that you are correct. There must be something done to have standards for ESL students, and they still need to be challenged, but we should not set them up for something they are not yet equipt to pass. I think it is important to know that they are making progress and meeting certain goals, but there is more than one way to do this. We also know that standarized tests are not the only way to measure academic achievment, so there must be other options to look at. Thanks for the discussion!
I agree with you on this one Chris. Teachers are not meant to teach strictly to the tests, but it seems that is what the government is looking for when they review acheivement for funding. If this kind of teaching continues, we are going to be crippling both students and the teaching profession for years to come. Not only that, but I personally feel that it is a form of discrimination to hold non-native English speakers to the same standards of native speakers. (By non-native speakers, I am mostly refering to non-fluent speakers, as I have met many non-native speakers of English who are fluent and actually speak the language at a higher level than many native speakers.)
Here is what I propose:
First of all, there needs to be tests to determine language comprehension for non-native speakers. These tests should be administered just like a cognitive ability test would be-to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Secondly, based on the results of these tests, the students should be placed on tracts where they can both learn the language and be tested for learning at the same time-thus fulfilling the requirements of NCLB.
Thirdly, the option should be left open for the student to move up into the native-speakers testing group if enough progress can be shown that they would benefit from the challenges there.
No student should be placed into a box simply because of his/her language or lack thereof, Just as no teacher should be boxed in because the tests they are required to teach to. Actually, I correct myself: no teacher should let themselves be put into the box of laziness where all you teach is test material: teaching is about facilitating knowledge, not facilitating testing, no matter what the government tells us. You hit the nail on the head, I think, Chris.
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