Posted on 09/09/2004 7:05:00 AM PDT by BenLurkin
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of three stories on recent school test results and the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers and administrators are struggling with a paradox built into the state standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. Federal standards require that students with learning disabilities and English learners meet the same level of proficiency as their peers.
And that has put a failing label on many otherwise adequate or improving schools.
No Child Left Behind requires all students meet the same standards, which are set by states. The act divides test-takers into subgroups based on ethnicity, income, disability and language ability. If too few students in any of those subgroups score "proficient" or better, the entire school or district can be sanctioned.
Based on data from the California Department of Education's 2004 Accountability Report released last Tuesday, approximately 54% of Antelope Valley schools failed to meet what the No Child Left Behind Act defines as "adequate yearly progress," or AYP.
Most of the schools that missed AYP did so because either students with disabilities or English learners didn't meet their proficiency targets.
All students enrolled in special education have an individual education plan, or IEP, that dictates how they will best learn and interact with peers. Based on the level of impairment, that IEP also determines whether a student will take the California Standards Test (better known as the STAR) that general education students take, or the California Alternative Placement Assessment exam.
Students who take the STAR - including those who in special education who are in all other respects below their grade level - are held to the same rigorous standard set by the state.
Buena Vista Elementary is one of five schools in Palmdale Elementary School District that could be forced to restructure itself should it fail to make AYP again. Principal Michael Ohren said he will appeal the failing mark Buena Vista received this year, but if that appeal is rejected, the school will enter year four of NCLB sanctions.
Despite what Ohren calls "outstanding" effort by teachers and students, Buena Vista fell short in the students with disabilities subgroup for both English language arts and math.
"We have the largest portion of our students are handicapped," Ohren said. "We have seven classes of intensive needs students."
Ohren said errors counting students led to the bad score.
"They don't take the regular needs test, but they were counted and they failed the test," he said. "A lot of these kids have no verbal skills and are severely cognitively handicapped."
Each student IEP can provide a better standard to measure progress, Ohren explained.
"We're not worried about holding them accountable to the state standards test," the Buena Vista principal said. "We're holding them to their IEP, and that's geared to the individual student and is therefore more meaningful."
He added, "The teachers and the kids, they just did an outstanding job. These teachers just knocked themselves out."
Immigrant students who have been in the United States for less than one year do not have to meet the same standards as others in the same grade level. However, after the first 12 months, all students are held to the same level of proficiency.
Students who have tested below their grade level for the past three years can also be considered English learners for testing purposes.
Linda Wagner, superintendent of Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District, has years of experience teaching English to non-native speakers, most recently at the Los Amigos Dual Immersion school in Palmdale. She said AV schools are not likely to get many exemptions for newly arrived immigrants.
"Most of the English learners didn't come straight from Mexico or Guatemala," she said. "Most come from L.A."
Schools can administer an alternative test in Spanish for a limited number of students.
"If you're not teaching them in Spanish, you can't test in Spanish, which makes it difficult to determine their capability," Wagner said. "You certainly can't do that with STAR or CAT-6."
No Child Left Behind expects students to be fluent in English after one year of speaking the language.
"It's like the special education kids," Wagner said. "I don't know if they're expected to do well, but they're expected to take (the test). Sanctions lead me to believe that they want every child at grade level."
El Dorado Elementary School in Lancaster met its AYP in all categories with the exception of English-learner students, who missed the 13.6% English language arts proficiency target by .6%.
"If just three more kids would have made it, we'd have met our AYP," said El Dorado Principal Howard Hern.
"We did a really good job to move everything up, but to miss AYP in one category is pretty disheartening," he said.
As a result, El Dorado will move from year one to year two of program improvement. Schools in year one are required to give students the option to transfer to another school. In year two, schools must offer students supplemental educational services, such as tutoring, and continue to offer choice of school.
Hern said his school has already taken a proactive approach last school year by offering English-learner students an extra 30 minutes of tutoring before school. However, only about one-fourth of El Dorado's English-learner students took advantage of the optional tutoring services, he said.
Cost for the tutoring was in the $14,000 range, Hern said. The district will also implement the Houghton/Mifflin reading series, which will be full in effect beginning this school year.
"It's very comprehensive and standard driven, and that's what we test on," Hern said.
While incorporating English-learner students into the public school system has always been tricky, Hern said the NCLB standards with regard to these students has made the process that much more difficult.
"It's created a real challenge, figuring out how to communicate the information to children who may not have a full understanding of the English language. Even for those that have a good understanding of the English language, it's very hard to do that."
Maria Reyes is a consultant in the Title One Policy and Partnerships office at the California Department of Education. She would not say whether holding students with disabilities or limited English skills to the same standards as their peers is fair.
Teachers and administrators who work with struggling students every day were more willing to weigh in.
"Of course it's not fair," said Phil Rosell, director of curriculum and instruction for Acton-Agua Dulce Unified. "It's not a good measure. It's a group that will all perform below grade level. To say then by 2014 that they're all going to perform at grade level … I just don't know that that's the case."
Superintendent Wagner stressed that it takes time to learn a second language. "The research tells us that it takes five to seven years to learn a language fluently," she said. "To then start testing students who've spoken the language for only 12 months is hardly a measure of their academic ability."
Bruce Berger, a special education instructor at Tumbleweed Elementary School, said Palmdale School District has been modifying its teaching methods regarding special education students.
Berger, who has previously had classrooms with fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders combined, said this is the first year he will have a class whose students are all in the same grade level.
"Which means I'll be able to focus on the curriculum for fifth grade, the state standards for fifth grade."
Berger said in addition to the district's more focused teaching approach to students with learning disabilities, special day classrooms, as they're called, will be better funded this year.
"We had to scrounge for whatever we needed," Berger said. "We had to beg, borrow and steal materials."
In some cases, decreased classroom size is another plus, said Berger, who will have about 12 students at the beginning of the year.
Berger said he applauds No Child Left Behind's commitment to all students because it doesn't view student-performance any differently because of the subgroups they belong to, whether they are "general ed" or "special ed."
Mainstreaming students and getting them on the same page is something Berger said he is hoping to see more of. Too often the title or label that precedes "student" or "teacher" is what people pay attention to, he said.
For the upcoming testing year, NCLB's proficiency standards will increase from 13.6% to 24.4% for English language arts and from 16% to 26.5% proficient in math.
In the meantime, area schools will continue to make modifications to better focus on underperforming subgroups.
"That's all we can do, really," Berger said. "To expect us to be miracle workers, well that's not going to happen."
"Most of the English learners didn't come straight from Mexico or Guatemala," she said. "Most come from L.A."
Yes, it's always something new with the schools.
Keeps the parents from focusing on what is wrong.
It is easy to teach about buying a car because of the fixed monthly payment... that's next week... but credit cards...
And yet, it's on the No Child Left Behind list. Why? Because there are a couple of minority groups (and in this school, they're really a minority) that underperform. So the school as a whole is on the list.
Now, the question is, why don't these kids perform to the average of the rest of the school? Is it because there's discrimination? Is it because the school is culturally insensitive and these kids are therefore unable to learn there?
Or is it because these kids don't have the support system outside the school to get the work done? Kids can fail in a good school, or succeed at a bad one, if during the 3/4 of the week that they are not at the school they have two parents that support them physically, mentally, and emotionally. Sub-groups of people who have a higher than average percentage of one-parent families, or low-education families, or families below the poverty line are going to have a higher percentage than average of children who do lower than average in school. Some of these factors are ones that public schools can and should address (it is in the public interest for children to be well-educated), but many of them are factors that the schools cannot address.
Of course, since this is a single-school district, there's nowhere for these kids to transfer, unless they go out of district and pay the fees. But the real issue is that it doesn't matter where these kids go to school, as the factors affecting their education are not school-related.
I think we have many dedicated teachers who do want to turn out an educated student. Hopefully most are motivated by something besides money. Yet after having said that... education in American is nothing more than a 'jobs program' with education of children as a by-product. Working for an educational system is not unlike being a Federal employee. Yes... there are many patriots but income and benefits is what drives the system.
In Mobile, Alabama, it is not possible to fail a student more than once in a twelve year period. At the end of that twelve year period that student would earn either a diploma or a certificate of attendance - one is required for further education while the other is worthless. After the child fails once... he/she must be moved along with their age group peers regardless that he/she is a 9th grade student reading at a 2nd grade level. I pray your system is better than ours.
Superintendent Wagner stressed that it takes time to learn a second language. "The research tells us that it takes five to seven years to learn a language fluently," she said.
One big mistake is hiring a teacher with a dialect that is so strong that one has difficulty understanding what is being taught. This is a big problem in the South as well as the West.
There is so much about this article that is left 'unsaid'. America's literacy rate is only 80%. Mexico is 90% and Communist China is 90%. Does this mean that their system of education is better than ours? No... it means that their state primary system has a cost involved, either in funds or labor. In the US our system is free to the point of providing even free meals. Anything that is free is not valued. What ever happened to the Biblical concept of, "he who does not work does not eat"?
It wasn't until LBJ's Great Society came about that children with disabilities were mainstreamed with normal children. The result? After having spent five trillion dollars - since LBJ - on programs such as 'Head Start' with little or no results... we must declare 'Head Start' one of the most expensive educational programs on the face of the Earth.
Along comes the liberal thinking of those like university Professor J.P. Mitchell who had a philosophy of: an African-American can not help another African-American unless he/she is in place to help that African-American. His action? He taught the test, not the course. The result? Hooking up (a concept most Caucasians do not know of) and teachers with a state license to teach but are ill prepared to teach. Again the learning curve is lowered.
In the South there are three institutions that are still legally segregated: (1) churches; (2) graveyards; and (3) inter-city neighborhood schools - where we see a population of close to 100% minority simply because Caucasians have moved out. No forced busing here. Who lives in an inter-city? Poverty level or below middle income minority families. This is where we find the failed or failing schools in our area.
For years 'teacher unions' have blamed low student tests results on lack of teacher income; teacher working conditions; lack of modern bright classrooms; lack of computers; lack of funds to buy supplies; and harsh teacher regulated requirements by the school boards. Now along comes NCLB... which finally puts the burden directly on the backs of teachers. Who are we going to blame when after several years of NCLB those same failing schools are still failing?
When are we going to hear from teachers that: a failed student who does not value education is usually a product of a failed family who does not value education? A brave Black Conservative Comedian has already given us a heads up. But is it too racist for us to talk about?
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