10 School Districts Cite No Child Law in Suit
California is breaking a federal law by testing students only in English -- then labeling schools and districts failures when English learners can't understand the exams -- according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Francisco by 10 school districts. The suit, naming Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state education officials, says that federal law requires states to test English learners in their first language if necessary, or use simplified English to measure academic skills. Across the state, 1.6 million kids -- 1 in 4 students -- speak little English. Most, 85 percent, speak Spanish. We are not educational failures," said Superintendent Foch "Tut" Pensis of the Coachella Valley district in Riverside County.
San Francisco Chronicle, June 2, 2005

Local Support Lacking for NCLB
Federal enforcers of the No Child Left Behind Act need to win local support to close the school achievement gap between white and minority children, Nina Rees, assistant deputy education secretary, told a Washington forum yesterday. "We're not convinced the message is seeping in fast enough at the local level to make the difference," Mrs. Rees told a Cato Institute audience that included a Utah state legislator who led a successful rebellion against federal control of schools in her state. Faced with tough criticism of unconstitutional consolidation of power in Washington over schools, Mrs. Rees said enforcement of the law has become the Department of Education's greatest challenge since NCLB's inception three years ago. State Rep. Margaret Dayton, the Republican lawmaker who forged near-unanimous bipartisan support in Utah's state legislature for her bill to put state academic requirements ahead of the federal dictates on states' rights grounds, said federal requirements are too stringent. She said the call for 100 percent student grade-level proficiency in reading and math by 2014 is at odds with federal statutes for education of handicapped children.
Washington Times, June 1, 2005

Interview with James Crawford
Q:   Mr. Crawford, would you describe your involvement in the current debate on bilingual education?
A:   My involvement with bilingual education began about 20 years ago as a journalist for Education Week. Here was a controversial issue, I thought, that might be fun to write about for a while. But I soon discovered that it was more than a hot political story. It was also a fascinating science story, a cultural change story, a civil rights story, and of course, an education story. Most important for me at the time, it was an untold story of social significance – something that enterprising journalists are always on the lookout for. Here was an innovative and effective way of teaching children that was widely misunderstood.
Facts on File, June 2005

States Eyeing Expense of Hand-Scored Tests in Light of NCLB Rules
When students put down their pencils at the end of Connecticut’s testing each year, another intensive process begins. Hundreds of trained evaluators work day and night for about a month to score the written responses. Although expensive, the use of open-ended questions drives the kind of instruction that state leaders say they want in their schools. So they balked when federal officials recently suggested using multiple-choice tests to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. “From our point of view, it would have us dumbing down our tests,” said Betty J. Sternberg, Connecticut’s commissioner of education. Many states have weighed the cost of hand-scored tests in light of the federal legislation, but the issue is especially pertinent for Connecticut, where Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has pledged to sue over the federal education law. Calling it an unfunded mandate, he cites estimates that the state must spend a total of $8 million of its own money by 2008 to fulfill the law’s testing provisions.
Education Week, May 25, 2005

Governor Enrages GOP With Late Vetoes
Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a corporate tuition tax-credit bill on Friday, torpedoing a plan that rival GOP leaders had brokered with her in order to reach a budget deal. Napolitano pinned the blame for the veto on Republicans, saying they broke the deal when they ignored Democrats during negotiations on a bill designed to help students who struggle to learn English. She vetoed that bill as well. "Part of our agreement was that they would reach a bipartisan agreement on English-language instruction," Napolitano said. "They did not." The issue of English-language learners grew out of a lawsuit, Flores vs. Arizona, filed by a Nogales family in 1992. Legislators are under the gun from a federal court order to spend more money on the 175,000 English-language learners in Arizona. Napolitano vetoed a Republican plan that would spend $42 million overall for English-language-learner programs and teacher training.
Arizona Republic, May 21, 2005

A Push for Standardized Tests
The teen was barely off the plane from Colombia when she took one test and then another yesterday at Jamaica's JHS 217. "She just got here," one teacher said to the test proctor as the new student, 14, sat by herself in the library, her pink and white sandals, as well as her blue sparkle nails, as new as her life in Queens. The proctor, Paula Nieto, sort of shrugged. The teenager, whose name is being withheld by request, had just taken a 90-minute state test on English proficiency, and after a lunch break, it was time for the eighth-grade math test. "I think it's a little crazy," Nieto said as she handed out the Spanish version of the test. "This girl is scared. Right now, she's nervous."
Newsday, May 16, 2005

Te$t Market
A committee hearing in the basement of the Texas Capitol on February 28 offered a glimpse of what the next phase of public school reform in this country might look like. The House Public Education Committee heard testimony on House Bill 2, an omnibus school finance and reform package. If the bill passes and Texas continues to serve as a national blueprint for school reform, the rest of the country should brace for more tests, with more riding on those tests than ever. Only one witness testified in favor of the bill. There was a small stir as Sandy Kress came to the microphone; in gatherings like this, he is something of a celebrity. He is one of the principal designers of No Child Left Behind, and has used his knowledge and connections to earn millions as a high-powered lobbyist for test publishers.
Texas Observer, May 13, 2005

Copyright © 2005 National Association for Bilingual Education. All Rights Reserved.