State officials in Washington claim the federal rules for language assessment in schools make no sense:
It's a classic Catch-22, state education officials say: The federal government holds public schools accountable for improving, as a group, the academic performance of students who don't speak English well -- but once the students learn English, they leave that group, so their improvement doesn't count in the federal calculation.
Pete Bylsma, director of research and evaluation for the state education department, likens it to giving a hospital no credit for curing patients because when they recover their health and are discharged, they're replaced by new patients, and the place is constantly full of sick people.
"When we have to test students that can't read the test and can't write the answers, it's going to be real hard for them to pass the test," he said yesterday.
One proposal is for English-language learners to be exempt from NCLB bean-couting until they've been in school three years "or until they have learned English." I'm in favor of the change that includes a deadline; otherwise, we're back to a situation in which there's no real accountability for a student as long as English is their second language.
Posted by kswygert at December 31, 2003 10:59 AM