ELL & NCLB: Let Me Count the Ways to Say “You Fail”

by Deb Drotor & Julia López-Robertson, The University of South Carolina

TestingThis week we revisit La Linea by Ann Jaramillo and focus our discussion on the ever present [over]testing of English Language Learners. Ann Jaramillo wrote La Linea for her students. She wrote to tell their story. In reality La Linea, is the story of many students who sit in America’s classroom today. Since we are a country of immigrants, La Linea is also the story of every non-Native American who came to this country at some point in time. Many would come because of a deep desire and dream of a better way of life like Miguel, his parents before him, and all of those who ride ‘el mata gente’. Others came to this land were enslaved and stripped of their freewill; forced to live an impoverished life so that others attained wealth while pursuing life, liberty, and happiness. It is these stories of hardship and determination that we must always read and tell in our classrooms, as they are the true assessment of America’s people whether they be documented or not, diverse, multiracial, multilingual, native or naturalized.

The NCLB Act of 2002 has resulted in children, especially English Language Learners, being left behind in our educational system. Additionally, they have no or very little opportunity to become bilingual speakers as they learn English monoliguistically. NCLB changed testing formats so that English is the only language used in testing. Now these tests to determine growth are equal for all learners, but they are not equitable to the ELL as language acquisition is being tested along with or rather than content knowledge. The testing process for proficiency begins one year after coming to the American classroom rather than allowing for the lengthier natural period of time that is necessary for language acquisition. The growth of the testing industry and attitude of educators has only fostered a skill and drill approach to mastery of a test, not necessarily mastery of content. Overtested: How high stakes accountability fails English Language Learners (Pandya, 2012), tells and retells her [Pandya’s] observations of students (more specifically ELL’s) who became stressed to the point of nonfunctioning as they awaited results from high stakes testing (i.e. Jose, p.68). Being moved from regular education to special education classes as a result of tests scores seems to be a running thread or constant risk in these observations. Pandya (2012) suggests an approach with “fewer tests at the end of units and more cumulative projects in which students may express what they have learned in nontesting situations in which thought processes matter more than getting the right answer” (p.59).

NCLB is not going away since its high stakes testing approach is filtering in to the programs designed to replace it, South Carolina’s Read to Succeed Act being one of them. Educators must better address assessment in their classrooms as Pandya suggests with nontesting situations to access progress in a more equitable manner. Our focus must be in the classroom assessment of progress and not on the results of a moment in time test. After all, the reading of La Linea reminds of that too many of our ELL’s like Miguel have passed the greatest test of all, just so they can sit in our classroom and belong!

La Linea is a story of comparisons: while Jaramillo tells the struggles of Miguel, Elena, and Javier traveling to America, she ends her novel with her family’s awareness of living in New Mexico that “we didn’t come to the United States. The United States came to us.” In speaking of those who do move for a better life, she tells us “They’d still be poor there. It would just be a different kind of poor.” As to the crossing La Linea, Jaramillo expresses this as “To be somewhere and nowhere at the same time? To belong and to be lost at the same time?” Is this what it feels like in an American classroom for the English Language Learner? Belonging and being lost at the same time. Do our assessments focus more on determining just how lost ELL’s are rather than what is needed to create a sense of belonging?

References

Pandya, Jessica Z. (2011). Overtested: How high stakes accountability fails English Language Learners. NY: Teachers College Press.

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