Testimony before the Joint Committee on
Education, Arts, & the Humanities
Date: September 9, 2003
Submitted by:
Lee Valentine
Language Rights Policy Director
Mass. English Plus Coalition
(617) 227-3000
lee_valentine@massenglishplus.org
Chairman Saint Fleur, Chairman Antonioni,
and members of the Joint Committee on Education, Arts, and Humanities, thank
you very much for the opportunity to testify before you tonight. My name is Lee
Valentine. I am the Language Rights Policy Director for Mass. English Plus
Coalition, an organization dedicated to promoting the values of bilingual
education and better services for language minority students in Massachusetts.
For the record, I am here to support legislation mandating multiple assessments
and eliminating MCAS as a graduation requirement. As such, we ask that the
committee report out the following bills favorably: S257, H3487, and H1250.
In our opinion, the MCAS does not take
into consideration the diversity of talents and learning styles that exist in
our communities. The goal of public education should be to help all students
reach their potential. Consider, for example, the language minority students in
vocational education programs such as Boston’s Madison Park High School. Many of
them may not be able to pass the MCAS test, in spite of the fact that they have
demonstrated proficiency in the technical and math skills required for their
chosen trades. Without a high school diploma, they cannot go on to higher
education or an apprenticeship program.
We want higher standards, but not the
one-size-fits-all standardization that the MCAS represents. We want strong
diagnostic tools, not high stakes tests that do not assist children, but instead
stand as obstacles to the futures of young men and women who are clearly
prepared to pursue their chosen careers.
If we must continue to use the MCAS in our
schools, then it should be used in a more thoughtful fashion that is consistent
with state and federal laws. The Education Reform Act of 1993 calls for a system
employing “a variety of assessment instruments.” We should explore the
possibilities of creating a portfolio system offering multiple methods to assess
student achievement beyond the pen and paper test, particularly for those who
are difficult to assess, including limited English proficient students.
Chapter 69 1I of the MGL mandates that
limited English proficient students who have been here for 3 years or less, and
who speak a language for which bilingual education is offered in the state, must
be “allowed opportunities for assessment of their performance in the language
which best allows them to demonstrate educational achievement and mastery.”
While Spanish-speaking students make up only 60% of all English language
learners in the state, prior to this year none of the subject matter exams
except for the 10th grade math MCAS have been translated at all, and
even the math exam has historically been available only in English and Spanish.
Later this year it seems that the 10th grade science MCAS exam will
be translated, but again only in Spanish. The DOE is providing no other
translated testing materials in other languages or for MCAS exams at other grade
levels.
No Child Left Behind requires our state to
make reasonable accommodations for limited English proficient children being
assessed. At this point in time it seems that no accommodations are being made
at all for speakers of languages other than English and Spanish except for
allowing these students to use bilingual dictionaries, and this can hardly be
deemed either reasonable or sufficient for accurately assessing limited English
proficient students.
Testing a recently arrived Chinese speaker
using a mathematics exam written in English speaks more to the child’s ability
to read English than it does to the child’s mathematical talents. At that point,
the validity of the test is called into question altogether.
One goal of No Child Left Behind is to
guarantee that limited English proficient children are assessed in a language
and form that is most likely to yield valid and reliable results. We believe
that the DOE’s assessment policy fails to meet these goals for many limited
English proficient children.
Another important point we want to
emphasize is that the MCAS English Language Arts test is not an appropriate
diagnostic instrument for assessing bilingual students who are learning ESL
(English as a Second Language). The MCAS tests students’ knowledge of themes,
structures, and elements of English and American literature which most bilingual
students have not been exposed to. The Department of Education is in the process
of developing an English Proficiency Assessment test that is aligned with the
curriculum frameworks. If the current MCAS graduation requirement remains in
place, we recommend that bilingual students who have been here 3 years or less
be allowed to take the EPA in lieu of the English Language Arts MCAS. The EPA
should also be the instrument that is used to gauge a student’s readiness to
take all their MCAS exams in English.
While we might agree that the MCAS mandate
has given urban schools such as the City of Boston the impetus to close the
achievement gap and raise educational standards and expectations, we believe
that it is a mistake to support a flawed assessment instrument as a criterion
for graduation. We should not replace the expert judgment of teachers in close
contact with students with the results of the MCAS when designing instructional,
promotional, and grading policies within the public schools.
To improve student achievement within
bilingual programs, we need better professional development for all teachers who
work with language minority students. We need better authentic assessment
instruments to properly gauge student progress in English and other content
areas. We need to make sure that appropriate resources are available and aligned
with the curriculum. We need schools to actively reach out to language minority
parents, so that schools and parents can work as a team to educate children.
Only through “whole school change” that respects and utilizes the students’
knowledge and cultures as assets will we meet the unique educational needs of
language minority students.
