U.S. Says NY Language Exam Does Not Comply With Law

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes, July 11, 2006

U.S. Says Language Exam Does Not Comply With Law

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

The federal Department of Education has found that New York State's
methods
for testing the annual progress of disabled students and students with
limited English proficiency do not comply with the No Child Left Behind
law and that the state must correct the problems within a year or risk
losing $1.2 million in federal school aid. The finding was issued in a
letter late last month to the state education commissioner, Richard P.
Mills. In the letter, Henry L. Johnson, the assistant secretary for
elementary and secondary education, told Mr. Mills that the New York State
English as a Second Language Achievement Test is not sufficiently
comparable to the regular English language arts assessment for use as a
substitute language arts assessment. Mr. Johnson also said that tests for
special education students were not suitable for their grade or age.

State officials said they were already working on the problems related to
testing special education students. But they said the finding could have
serious consequences for the states nearly 175,000 non-English speaking
students, including about 145,000 in New York City, by requiring them to
take the regular annual state reading exam. A large number of these
students would likely fail the test and, as a result, hundreds more
schools could be branded as needing improvement under provisions of No
Child Left Behind. The law requires annual testing and schools can be
sanctioned if groups of students, like racial minorities or disabled
children, fail to make adequate progress. To help formulate its response
to the federal government, the state education department later this week
is convening a group of experts on bilingual education.

Other possible solutions include forcing non-English speakers to take both
the regular test and the test they have been taking, or for the state to
devise an entirely new test, which could cost millions of dollars. In the
school year that just ended, 173,434 non-English speaking students
statewide took the existing exam, known by its acronym, Nyseslat. Students
are typically required to take the regular state English exam after three
years in school in New York. Mr. Mills, in a statement, said that it was
too soon to describe specific remedies but that he expected to address
regulators concerns. We are going to resolve these issues, he said. We
will work with educators from across the state to arrive at a solution.
This will include members of the bilingual and special education
communities. David Cantor, a spokesman for Schools Chancellor Joel I.
Klein, said it was premature for the city to comment.

New York was one of 36 states whose accountability systems under No Child
Left Behind were found by federal reviews to have substantial problems and
deemed pending approval. Only 10 states won approval, while two, Maine and
Nebraska, had their testing systems rejected. Local experts on bilingual
education said the federal governments complaint was just the latest
example of non-English speaking children being an afterthought in American
school systems. Maria Neira, a first vice president of the state teachers
union, New York State United Teachers, said it was unfair of the federal
government to expect newly arrived immigrant students to take the same
exam as native English speakers.

Of course, the tests are not comparable, they are not comparable because
they are not developed to measure the same skills, she said. One is
language acquisition, the other is English language skills. Whats going to
happen is you are not going to have our English language learner students
showing any progress. This is a big dilemma for us. Lillian Rodrguez-Lpez,
the president of the Hispanic Federation, said the government should focus
first on the programs offered to non-English speakers. What they really
need to look at are the resources, the funding that they put into No Child
Left Behind, she said. There are not enough certified teachers, the
curriculum is not strong enough. We need a solid set of standards that are
being followed across the state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/education/11schools.html