No Child Left Behind

[Richard LaFortune]

--- "MiaKalish at LFP" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>
wrote:

> was there supposed to be an attachment or a link?
> mia
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Native Language Programs Running Afoul Of No
Child Left Behind. 22 January 2005 Mike
Chambers, The Associated Press. The Associated
Press State & Local Wire. Copyright 2004
Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

[Some western Alaska schools that for decades
have taught and helped preserve the Native Yupik
language are in a quandary over meeting new
federal testing requirements under the No Child
Left Behind Act. In the Lower Kuskokwim School
District, third grade children taught almost
exclusively in the Yupik language may be required
to pass federal tests written in English. In
Alaska, where Natives speak 20 aboriginal
languages and dialects, meeting a uniform federal
law could ultimately be too expensive, conflict
with Native cultural traditions as well as the
local control that the rural villages treasure.
Not many states face the issues that we do,’ said
state Education Commissioner Roger Sampson. Under
the federal law, students would be tested
annually from grades 3-8 and again in high
school. States could make accommodations for
language barriers, but after three years in U.S.
public schools the children would be required to
take English-only tests. Aside from the Heritage
Language programs in more than 30 rural public
schools, Alaska's largest city of Anchorage has
more than 93 languages spoken by students,
Sampson said. Already cash strapped, the state
can little afford to translate tests into more
than 100 languages, education officials said.
And even if it could, the Yupik language, though
spoken by thousands of Alaska Natives from Norton
Sound to Bristol Bay, does not translate as
completely as Spanish or other European
languages. For instance, mathematics to American
children is based on units of 10, where
increments of 20 are used in Yupik math and
numerous English words have no Yupik
counterparts. The Lower Kuskokwim School
District, which oversees schools in Bethel and
surrounding villages has had an intensive Yupik
language program for about 30 years, said
Superintendent Bill Ferguson. A similar program
instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in
earlier years was seen as a progressive way to
assimilate Native children into English fluency.
Since then, it's become a way for Yupik-speaking
Natives to sustain their language and culture
just as other Alaska Native languages dwindle. I
feel strongly that our kids should speak Yupik
fluently, said state Rep. Mary Kapsner, of
Bethel. I really feel this isn't just an academic
issue about benchmark tests, but about cultural
and social well being.]


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