At Huff Elementary School in Elgin, Illinois, 54 percent of the students are first-year learners in English. Yet the Measure of Annual Growth in English (IMAGE) exam is required for all students, and the scores for all students factor into the state's academic watch list.
Is this fair? I'm not sure. Title III of the NCLB separates children just learning English from those who can be expected to be performing at grade level in English, but it requires schools to assess both types of kids, and to set standards of performance for both sets of kids. The IMAGE exam measures progress in English, so why give it to kids who are learning English for the first time? It seems odd that Illinois would have this sort of requirement for kids.
On the other hand, the problem here could be that Illinois has a very low standard on the IMAGE for kids who have completed only one year of English training, and this elementary school just isn't meeting that because they have so many of those kids, or so many of those kids are otherwise learning-challenged. From the article, it's hard to tell exactly what the issue is.
Posted by kswygert at December 11, 2003 11:54 AM