WQUB: Illinois Students with limited English Aptitude will Take Regular Test (2007-12-12)

Nearly sixty thousand kids in Illinois who speak limited English will be forced to take the regular state achievement test next spring. The federal government says the alternative exam these students had been taking was too easy. But bilingual education teachers worry their students are being set up to fail and schools and districts fear they'll pay a heavy price too.
Chicago Public Radio's Jay Field reports.

How to test English language learners has been one of the toughest issues states have struggled with under No Child Left Behind. In past years, several states, including Illinois , have given limited English speakers their own exams. The Illinois test, called IMAGE, quizzed kids math and reading skills with simple questions. Laurie Mason teaches bilingual education at Field Elementary School in Wheeling .

Mason: I understand the IMAGE wasn't up to par with what it needed to be.

The IMAGE exam was just supposed to test a student's English proficiency. But that's no longer enough for the federal government, which wants to raise the bar academically for English language learners. Illinois tried to strengthen IMAGE, but the U.S. Department of Education rejected the rewrite. So now, Laurie Mason's bilingual education students will take the regular state achievement test, the ISAT, next spring.

Mason: The ISAT is a very different assessment. It's not going to measure bilingual students achievement because the test is a hundred percent in English and it obviously would not be written at a level where those students are ready to be assessed at.

SOUND OF MASON TEACHING

Mason teachers a third grade class of native Spanish speakers. The kids are learning the basics of the U.S. Metric System.
Bilingual Classroom: I want everybody to look at all the words we highlighted.

This is one method schools use to teach kids with limited English skills. A math teacher conducts the first part of the class in Spanish, then cedes the floor to Mason, who prods the students to improve their English skills by turning the lesson into a vocabulary exercise.

Bilingual Classroom: And I want you to think why these words are important for us to highlight and its something you just worked on with Mrs Marcotte too

Field elementary is one of twelve schools in Community Consolidated School District 21. More than a third of the district's students speak limited English. District officials worry forcing these kids to take a test they're not prepared for will leave them demoralized. And they say the district itself will also be hurt. Rosemarie Meyer runs all bilingual and English as a Second Language programs in District 21.

Meyer: Last year, 10 of our 12 schools made AYP.

That's Adaquate Yearly Progress, the all-important benchmark schools have to hit under No Child Left Behind. Meyer says making students with poor English skills take the ISAT will cause her district's test scores to crater at a time when it's getting tougher and tougher for schools to make this required progress.

Meyer: The majority of our schools we have twelve schools in the district ten of them will not meet. That's the prediction we have.

Nearly 60-thousand limited English speaking students in Illinois will be forced to switch to the ISAT this spring, including as many as 25-thousand kids in Chicago . State education officials will be developing a new achievement test for ELL students. But that exam won't be ready for two years. In the meantime, Matt Vanover, with the Illinois State Board of Education, says limited English speakers will get some accommodations made for them as they take the ISAT.

Vanover: Which could include extended time, clarification of directions or what are referred to as reader scripts where the students would hear English, rather than read it.

Vanover says the Board will be deciding on what accommodations to offer in the coming weeks. The prospect of extra-help, though, isn't all that comforting to officials in District 10. They say while it may help kids who've lived in the U.S. for a few years, it will do little for students who've been here only a few months.

I'm Jay Field, Chicago Public Radio