[EDLING:2389] What's in a Home-Language Survey?

[Francis M. Hult]

Education week

What's in a Home-Language Survey?

I've taken note over the years of the odd phenomenon that some children who are 
Native Americans and speak only English are identified as English-language 
learners.

This is how it happens. Schools are required by federal law to give parents a 
home-language survey when they enroll their children in school. In Indian 
Country, parents are likely to say on the survey that an indigenous language is 
spoken at home, even though it may be spoken only by a grandmother, or hardly 
spoken by anyone. But if they do answer the home-language survey in that way, 
schools are required to test the English proficiency of the child. If the child 
doesn't do well on the test, he or she becomes an "English-language learner."

Full story
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-
language/2007/02/whats_in_a_homelanguage_survey_1.html