NCLB and the Education and Assessment of LEP Students
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) of 2001 is a federal legislation passed by Congress to address the various types of achievement gaps between students in the United States. NCLB is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act(ESEA), which was originally enacted in 1965 to provide supplementary federal funding for states to set up educational programs predominantly for disadvantaged groups of students. The schools receiving the federal money intended on using the money in the most efficient way for their students, however, with no way to prove an effective use for funds, the ESEA had obvious flaws. States, schools, and districts needed to be held accountable for using the federal funds in the most effective way to reach the disadvantaged students it was intended to help. With the Congressional bi-partisan passing of NCLB in 2002, accountability mandates were added to the already existing ESEA. The accountability mandates were set so that states must meet them in order to receive federal funding for the educational programs for disadvantaged students depicted in the ESEA. Standardized testing is the primary accountability measure, but others exist as well. The ESEA was primarily focused on educational programs for disadvantaged students, while NCLB was primarily focused on closing the achievement gaps between various demographic groups among the country. A set a goal for the progress on NCLB in closing achievement gaps is that by 2014, all states will be required to bring all students to a proficient level determined by the state in both reading and math.
One demographic group identified in NCLB as “underachieving” is limited English proficient(LEP), or English Language Learner students(ELL). In the original six titles passed in the ESEA 1965, there was no mention of teaching LEP students or bilingual education programs. In 1967, however, with reauthorization to ESEA, Title VII was added to address the needs for bilingual education programs, especially for American India, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Natives, so that these students are guaranteed quality education. However, with no accountability and growing numbers of ELL students in America, NCLB needed to address the new needs for bilingual education programs. Title VII of the ESEA was replaced with Title III in NCLB in 2002. Title III of NCLB is titled, “Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Students.” While NCLB had good intentions to close the achievement gaps between ELL students and non-ELL students, issues have arisen and there are currently inequalities for the education given to ELL students. One issue, which transcends through all demographic groups of NCLB, is the validity of one assessment to meet the needs of students from all language and cultural backgrounds. Another fundamental issue needing to be addressed is the definition of proficiency level in states, and if these levels are creating the best programs to learn English most efficiently. There are issues in the teaching methods, the testing methods, and accommodations given to ELL students, which are hindering NCLB’s main goal: to close achievement gaps.
According to the Center for Public Education, NCLB defines a student as limited English proficient “to describe individuals, aged three through twenty-one, who are enrolled or preparing to enroll in an elementary or secondary school and whole difficulties in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding English may affect their ability to participate fully in society and to succeed in school and on state assessments,” (Center for Public Education 2007). Under NCLB, ELL students are placed into a separate subgroup for Annual Yearly Progress(AYP) determinations. The National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition defines Adequate Yearly Progress as “a measure used by individual states to determine student progress toward achievement of academic standards in reading/language arts, mathematics, and science,” (NCELA). Under NCLB, AYP is determined at the state level for school achievement, but ELL students are not required to meet the same standards as non-ELL students. They have specific guidelines to meet the AYP for their specific subgroup. As previously mentioned, NCLB addresses the needs these LEP students in Title III, but Title I, however, also addresses the needs of these students. Title I’s main focus is to close the achievement gaps between historically underachieving demographic groups. LEP students fall under this category because these students are historically, and currently, an underachieving group of students nationwide. In order for states to receive funding for LEP programs, they must follow the specific accountability mandates outlined in both Title I and Title III for LEP students. Title I and Title III of NCLB work together to identify the criteria for being labeled as LEP, to define English proficiency and devise proficiency tests for LEP students, and to identify effective achievement testing for ELL students, (Center for Public Education 2007). According to the U.S. Department of Education, “Title I and Title III provide for than $13 billion annually to LEP students for English language acquisition and academic achievement,” (U.S. Department of Education 2004).
In order to keep track of progress for LEP students, proficiency tests and achievement tests are both outlined in Title I and Title III. In order to receive the federal funding, states must follow the guidelines for both types of tests. An important consideration while studying NCLB is how NCLB defines “proficient”. In an article titled “What NCLB says about ELL students” written by The Center for Public Education, proficient is defined as comprehension, speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, (Center for Public Education 2007). States determine their own English language proficiency standards (which must be linked to the state academic standards), along with the academic standards for the ELL subgroup, (Center for Public Education 2007). According to the Center for Public Education, Title I and Title III both require that students K-12 take an English proficiency exam annually; districts testing oral language, reading, and writing every year.
Title I and III outline specific guidelines to how LEP students take achievement tests. All students must take achievement tests in order to receive any NCLB funding, but there are special criteria and accommodations to these tests for LEP students. Every year, states, districts, and schools are required to give a report on the LEP subgroup to see if they are meeting the AYP in order to get funding (Center for Public Education 2007). The Center for Public Education outlines the accommodations given to the ELL population of students. The annual math and science tests, according to NCLB, can always be administered in the native language to students, but the state reading and language arts tests can only be given in the native language for the student’s first three years of testing, (Center for Public Education 2007). ELL’s are required to be tested with the state standardized math test their first year of school, but they can wait until the following year to be tested in reading, (Center for Public Education 2007).
When ESEA was first passed in 1965, the makeup of ELL’s looked very different from the way it does today. There has been tremendous grown in just the past fifteen years in the number of ELL’s in America’s schools, let alone in the past forty-five years. It was very necessary that ESEA was reformed to include the needs of ELL’s, because there are much more today than when the original act was passed. According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are about 5.5 million LEP students in American Public schools, and over four hundred different languages are spoken; Spanish, however, is the most commonly known First Language (L1), with eighty percent of LEP students having Spanish as their L1, (U.S. Department of Education 2004).
In a graph by the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition(NCELA) titled “Growing Number of English Learner Students from the Department of Education,” data shows that between 1998 and 2009, the total number of students enrolled in preschool to twelfth grade in U.S. public schools has risen by 7.22% (from 46,153,266 to 49,487,174), while the total number of ELL students enrolled in preschool to twelfth grade in U.S. public schools has risen by 51.01% (from 3,540,673 to 5,346,673), (NCELA 2009). According to this same data in 2009, California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Virginia, and New York have the largest numbers of ELL students, with having over 100,000 students in each state. The states with the highest density of ELL enrollment, with over ten percent of students enrolled in public education being ELL students, are Alaska, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas. The states with the smallest numbers and least dense enrollment of ELL students are West Virginia, Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska, (NCELA 2009). A common trend is that states close to the border of Mexico have high numbers and high densities, along with states with large metropolitan areas (Illinois, New York, California, Texas.)
Since NCLB was passed as federal legislation in 2002, achievement data has been collected on all students in public schools and on all students in the subgroups, including LEP students. Achievement data has been collected through a test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This test is nicknamed “the nation’s report card,” because it gives provides the public about the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students in the United States. Students are tested in various subjects in fourth grade and in eighth grade. The NAEP website writes that since 1969, the various subjects that are tested are mathematics, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, geography, and other subjects. However, with the passing of NCLB, reading and mathematics are the subjects tested on and stressed most in schools. This test is used to assess the condition and progress in education over time. A subgroup studied in the NAEP is English language learners. The official website of the NAEP (nationsreportcard.com) gives the public access to achievement data of English Language Learners in math and reading in both fourth and eighth grade over the past ten years. This gives a great opportunity to see if the implementation of NCLB has positively or negatively affected test scores of ELLs by looking at scores in 2002 versus scores in 2009. Data from this website states that there has been no significant change in fourth grade reading test scores of ELL students from 2002 to 2009, (nationsreportcard.com). Looking at ten schools that participated in both 2009 and 2003, the data demonstrates that reading scores of ELLs increased in 2009 for two out of the ten districts, and the scores decreased in one of the districts. The seven other districts had no significant change.
The NAEP website also gives graphs and data showing the national average for reading and math scores in both reading and math. The graphs also indicate the national average of ELL students compared to the national average of children with English as their first language. From 1998 to 2009, non ELL students’ scores have consistently significantly higher than ELL students’ scores in both grade levels and in both subjects. The biggest gap between ELL and non ELL students’ scores was in 2000, which may have influenced the reauthorization of Title VII to Title III in NCLB. In 2000, fourth grade ELL student’s national average reading score was 167, while non ELL student’s national average reading score was 216. The national average science score for fourth grade ELL students in 2009 was 114, while non ELL student’s national average science score was 154. This shows that there is a larger gap in reading scores than in science, but that there is a considerable achievement gap consistently in math and science between ELLs and non ELLs.
From observing and analyzing the achievement data from the NAEP, it is clear that there are still substantial achievement gaps between the English Language Learners in America’s public schools and the native English speaking students after the passing of NCLB in 2002. The new accountability mandates outlined in Title I and Title III of NCLB have not pushed schools to efficiently teach ELL in a way that will allow them to reach the national standards for reading and math. There are many different opinions and perspectives about how bilingual education and ESL education should be structured nationally, and that Title I and Title III do not adequately meet the needs of ELL students in American Schools.
In a 2007 report from the Centro for Education Policy titled “English Language Learners’ Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act,” the weaknesses of the accountability mandates for ELLs was focused on and alternatives were proposed. The report describes the challenges schools are facing when asked to assess ELL students each year in speaking, reading, writing, listening, and comprehension of English. Some of the problems and questions about current ELL assessments and accountability mandates that the article states are: the compatibility of shelf tests with state English proficiency standards, the feasibility of administering these lengthily tests, the validity of one test serving students from different linguistic backgrounds, the lack of financial and technical resources available to states, the established proficiency standards meeting up with actual strategies to most efficiently teach English proficiency, and how to conceptualize language proficiency in areas such as reading and writing, (Center for Education Policy 2007). All of these issues are extremely important to consider, and while looking deeper into these issues, it is obvious that the accountability mandates for ELL students established in NCLB are not feasible for most states and do not adequately meet the needs of ELLs.
The Center for Education Policy lists a few benefits and weaknesses of the ELL provisions in NCLB. One benefit mentioned is that giving the ELL students the same tests as everyone else creates tangible results for the subgroup which allows educators to compare scores to non ELL students and decide how much academic their performance needs to be improved. With the tests set up in this manner, it allows for a lot of data to be produced which allows for further research and implementation of new methods to better raise proficiency levels of ELLs in public schools. A weakness mentioned in the article is the fact that teaching strategies for teaching English to ELLs are still mostly the teaching strategies educators use to teach English to English monolinguals. Another weakness stated is that there is a lack of hard evidence on the impact NCLB has had on the achievement of language learners. A quote from the article on this subject states, “There is a lot of data, but we don’t know what they mean.” However, looking back to the information the NSES website, data showing the test scores comparing ELLs and non ELLs describe that there has been a lack of achievement since the implementation of NCLB.
Another opinion on the ELL provisions of NCLB is stated in an article named, “Teaching to the Test: How No Child Left Behind Impacts Language Policy, Curriculum, and Instruction for English Language Learners,” written by K. Menken in the Bilingual Research Journal in 2006. The main issue that the article addresses is that with the pressures to meet ELL testing standards, teachers are teaching in a way that will have their ELL students do well on the test, but not necessarily become more English proficient, (Menken 2006). Ways in which teachers “teach to the test” are increasing native language instruction, and promoting monolingual instruction strategies, as discussed previously in the article from the Center of Education Policy. This issue was tested in a research study with ten schools in New York City. The issue was confirmed with the research, and what was found is that there is too much focus on testing and not enough on student’s learning English, there is too much focus on accountability, and educators focus on the material covered on the tests that “count” for meeting the accountability mandates, (Menken 2006). Another outcome of the study shows that the tests developed under Title I and Title III ELL accountability mandates are not developed to meet the educational needs of ELLs, thus the quality of their education is greatly hindered seeing that there are being taught material for testing, (Menken 2006). Menken proposed solution to these issues ELL students are faced with is that the educational needs that are specific to ELLs must be distinguished because a vast number of these students are unable to pass high stakes tests.
Some recommendations for changing NCLB to better meet the needs of English Language Learner students have already been addressed in articles by the Center for Education Policy and Menken in the Bilingual Research Journal. The Center for Education Policy also proposes that a test using universal design would be a solution that included ELL and non ELL in testing. By universal design, they mean that it can be one test that uses simplified English that is used by all test takers. This has problems, however, in reading and writing tests, because advanced vocabulary and grammar skills are being tested. The most detailed yet comprehensive, understandable, and tangible set of solutions that I believe would better meet the needs of ELLs in public schools are from a report from a round table discussion of all different types of educators, which was then published by the Center for Education Policy. The proposed solutions include weighted assessment results for ELL students, giving students the opportunity to actually learn, specific accommodations to instruction and assessment, and developing individualized academic plans, (Center for Education Policy 2007). I highly agree with these solutions, especially because of the individualized plans and special accommodations. This works against the “one size fits all” mentality that is represented in Title I and Title III on NCLB for the education of ELLs.
The U.S. Department of Education developed a The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in March of 2010 named “A Blueprint for Reform” supervised by Arne Dunkin, which claims to “continue to strengthen the federal commitment to serving all students, and improve each program to ensure the funds are used more effectively to meet the needs of all students they serve,” (U.S. Department of Education 2010). There is a reauthorization plan for English Learns, which promises to improve programs that encourage innovative programs and practices to support success and build a sufficient knowledge base, (U.S. Department of Education 2010). The plan may provide many different types of bilingual and ESL programs, such as dual language programs, transitional bilingual education, sheltered English immersion, and a few others. The plan also includes providing “effective profession development for all teachers of English learners, including teachers of academic content areas, that is responsive to demonstrated needs identified by evaluations,” (U.S. Department of Education 2010). In order to receive federal money, states are required to created new consistent identification criteria for ELL students, and also to be able to determine which program they belong in after identification with a valid and reliable English language proficiency assessment. Along with this, states are also required to devise a way to evaluate how well districts’ languet instructional programs are succeeding, (U.S. Department of Education 2010).
After researching the ways in which NCLB has affected the education of English Language Learners in America’s public schools, I feel strongly that the needs of ELL students have not been met, and that the accountability mandates established do not adequately push educators to teach ELL students English in the most efficient and useful way. This belief was largely solidified while looking at the data from the NAEP website. The achievement gap is so vast between ELL students and non ELL students, and this hasn’t changed since the implementation of NCLB in 2002. This data is proof that the provisions described in NCLB did not address the needs of the population of English Language Learners, because there was no improvement in test scores. I also agree with the solutions proposed by the Center for Education Policy. I think that individualized instruction and creating accommodations for students on tests should definitely be implemented. Also, I believe there should be required ESL training for all classroom teachers that is based off of effective language instruction strategies rather than “teaching to the test”. It is the job of educators to access the knowledge within ELL students in order to find their full potential and assist them in becoming successful students. The Department of Education needs to address the issues to be able to close the achievement gaps and tap into the knowledge children learning English have.
Bibliography
Center for Education Policy. (2007). English Language Learners' Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. http://www.cep-dc.org/index.cfm?DocumentSubSubTopicID=32
Center for Public Education. (2007) What Research Says About English Language Learners At A Glance.http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Instruction/What-research-says-about-English-language-learners-At-a-glance/What-NCLB-says-about-ELL-students.html
Department of Education website: www.ed.gov/teachers/nclbguide/toolkit_pg11.html
Menekn, K. (2006) Teaching to the Test: How No Child Left Behind Impacts Language Policy, Curriculum, and Instruction for English Language Learners. Bilingual Research Journal 30:2 http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Linguistics/people/menken/docs/BRJ30.pdf
National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and Language Instruction Educational Programs http://www.ncela.gwu.edu
National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and Language Instruction Educational Programs, The Growing Numbers of Limited English Proficient Students. http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/9/growingLEP_0708.pdf
U.S. Department of Education. (2010). A Blueprint for Reform: Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Meeting the Needs of English Learners and Other Diverse Learners. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/publication_pg6.html#part6
United States. U.S. Department of Education. National Assessment of Educational Progress. Web. <http://nationsreportcar.gov/>/.