by Emily Ruíz
A new survey shows that the “No Child Left Behind Act” is not adequately serving the needs of Latino and immigrant communities, indicating flaws in NCLB’s assessment testing of English Language Learners (ELL) students.
According to the report, released on Feb. 14 by the University of Texas-Austin and Rice University, Texas public schools lose at least 135,000 students a year – 80 percent of them learning English as a second language, and 75 percent Latino.
“While we work on reauthorizing NCLB, we must keep in mind the civil rights of all students,” said Victor Goode, assistant general counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Signed in 2002 by President Bush, the NCLB requires states to test students, including ELLs, annually and demonstrate progress toward having all students reach high proficiency levels on tests by 2014.
States must also measure students’ English language proficiency.
The law is up for renewal this year.
“A big problem for ELLs is that often an exam will test their English ability when it’s not supposed, like a math test with a big word problem. You’re testing math and English proficiency at the same time, but you’re only trying to test math, said Peter Zamora, Washington, D.C. regional counsel of MALDEF.
Some recommendations from the Campaign for Higher Education for the reauthorization of NCLB include requiring data collecting of students to be broken down into racial and ethnic backgrounds, and holding high schools accountable for increasing graduation rates with higher quality testing and assessment.
The Campaign also wants more qualified teachers and more parental involvement s students have a strong support system a home and in the classroom.
“Many of these children are trying to learn a new language at the same time as learning a new subject.
Their success needs t be defined by academic achievement, no English language proficiency alone,” said Phitsamay Uy, board chair for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center.
The Campaign for Higher Education held a policy briefi ng on the reauthorization of NCLB Feb. 28 on Capitol Hill. Two of the four speakers represented the Latino community, Peter Zamora of MALDEF and Brent Wilkes of LULAC.
Campaign members represent ten national organizations that advocate for the communities most affected by NCLB assessments. Four out of the ten are Latino based organizations, including MALDEF, LULAC, NCLR and the National Association of Elected and Appointed Education Fund.
To obtain additional information on the Campaign for Higher Education visit: www.highschoolequity.org. Hispanic Link Weekly Report.
