The Assessment and Placement of Language Minority Students
In the fall of 1992, a nine-year-old boy from Bejing, China,
came to New York City. His neighborhood school, without asking his parents
about his language abilities or testing him--either one of which would have
shown that he spoke no English--placed him in a monolingual English fourth
grade classroom. There, his teacher, who did not believe in the value of bilingual
education or English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, gave him a Chinese-English
dictionary and expected him to learn the language on his own. Needless to say,
he did not do well in class.
BACKGROUND
Unfortunately, the boy from China is not unique; as of 1990,
a full 14 percent of the school-aged population in the United States came from
language minority backgrounds, an increase of 38 percent over 1980 ("Census
Reports," 1992). In cities like Los Angeles, the growth in the enrollment of
language minority students has outstripped the growth in total district enrollment--a
trend likely to continue (Wasney & Wilde, 1987).
Significant numbers of these students are not being properly
identified by educators. A recent study of Asian and Hispanic eighth graders,
three-quarters of whom came from bilingual homes, found that teachers identified
only 27 percent of the Asian students and 39 percent of the Hispanic students
as language minority (Bradby, Owings, & Quinn, 1992).
Although the 1974 Supreme Court decision in LAU v. NICHOLS required
schools to provide LEP students with educational opportunities reflecting their
language needs, it did not specify how to do this. Accordingly, districts across
the country have met the law's requirements with a wide variety of services,
including transitional bilingual programs, pullout ESL classes, individualized
courses of study, and even sink-or-swim English "immersion" classes.
Most districts place new language minority students into age-appropriate
grade levels, but they must also determine whether the students need bilingual
or ESL services. And, unfortunately, the accurate identification of students
for language services--as distinct from other compensatory services--remains
among the most serious problems facing schools today (Rossell & Baker,
1988).
THE RANGE OF POLICIES
Because the story of bilingual education in the United States
has been as much about political controversy as about actual practices, assessment
procedures in a school often reflect local politics as well as student needs.
And, since the number of students in special programs often determines financial
support, funding polices can have a direct impact upon student placement (Clements,
Lara, & Cheung, 1992).
Thus, no single universally accepted model has been developed
for any aspect of the language assessment process; the screening and evaluation
of students vary widely from state to state and even from school to school.
Still, all districts must address two fundamental issues with regard to their
students:
- Determine which students to test
- Develop the testing
mechanism
IDENTIFICATION. Some districts attempt to evaluate all incoming
students to identify those in need of language services, while others simply
place students into classes and wait until problems emerge; some districts
fall somewhere in between. In New York City, for example, all students with
Hispanic surnames are automatically evaluated, while others are evaluated only
if there is some reason to do so. This policy, instituted in 1975 as a "temporary" measure
in the wake of a lawsuit brought against the city's schools by the city's Puerto
Rican community (Santiago, 1986), remains in place today.
ASSESSMENT. Some districts have few, if any, formalized assessment
procedures, while others perform extensive multi-dimensional testing (De George,
1988). Still, most districts employ some combination of measures, including
one or more of the following (Department of Education, 1991):
- information from teachers, or teacher referrals
- information from parents, often in the form of a formalized
Home Language Survey
- evaluation of records from previous schools
- appraisal of the student's academic level
- appraisal of the student's language skills
Most common among these alternatives is some variety of formalized
testing, with 49 states using either language proficiency exams, criterion-referenced
achievement tests, or both. Thirty states use information from teachers and
27 use a Home Language Survey to screen students (Department of Education,
1991). Unfortunately, none of these methods is ideal, in large part because
there is no national consensus on a workable definition of a limited English
proficient (LEP) student (Department of Education, 1991).
TEACHER INFORMATION AND THE HOME LANGUAGE SURVEY
In most cases, information from teachers and the Home Language
Survey act as screening mechanisms for schools to determine if further evaluation
is necessary. Of the two, the Home Language Survey is the most standardized,
since teacher information can be subjective. The California Home Language Survey,
which is supposed to be given to all incoming students, and is typical, asks
four questions (California State Department of Education, 1989):
- What language did your son or daughter learn when he or she
first began to talk?
- What language does your son or daughter most frequently use
at home?
- What language do you use most frequently to speak to your son
or daughter?
- What language is most often spoken by the adults at home?
- If the answer to any question is something other than English,
the student must take a language proficiency exam.
While the Survey can provide important student information, some
parents, whether out of fear (particularly if they are undocumented residents),
misunderstanding, or a desire to ensure that their children are placed in mainstream
classrooms, may indicate that English is spoken in the home even if it is not
(Clements et al., 1992; De Avila, 1990). Still, if used carefully--and if the
parents actually visit the school rather than simply fill out a form--the Home
Language Survey can be both a useful assessment tool and an important method
for establishing a home-school relationship (Nelson, 1986).
TESTING MECHANISMS
A wide variety of achievement and language proficiency tests
has been developed to determine student eligibility for language services or
special education programs. To be as accurate and effective as possible, the
tests should be coordinated to measure all aspects of student language use,
including both oral and written proficiency, and comprehension in both English
and the student's native language (Clements et al., 1992).
Unfortunately, many states evaluate only oral skills when testing
students for placement, including those states which use the Language Assessment
Scales (LAS), the most widespread of language proficiency tests (De George,
1988; Williams & Gross, 1990). This practice measures a minimum level of
language proficiency, but bypasses the more complex language skills that students
must master in order to succeed in school.
The use of a single test to determine eligibility for language
services is made even more problematic because the criteria for such eligibility--often
only an arbitrary cut-off in test scores--vary greatly among states and even
within districts.
HOW TO IMPROVE ASSESSMENTS
Great care is needed to develop truly equitable and useful
mechanisms for identifying language minority students and providing them with
appropriate services, since no uniform or single fully adequate measure exists.
Further, while it is important to maintain some degree of school autonomy in
determining assessments to meet local needs (Rood, 1989), state and district
support must supplement school initiatives.
STUDENT CENTERS. Some districts, as in Philadelphia, have founded "Welcome
Centers" designed to ensure the equitable treatment of incoming language minority
students in multicultural schools (Brenner, 1989). Although they still rely
on referrals from local schools, these centers have some control over the assessment
of language minority students, and can provide a sympathetic setting. In addition,
because the centers specifically address the needs of the language minority
population, they can serve not only as testing sites, but also as clearinghouses
for student health services and parent support facilities.
MULTIPLE ASSESSMENT METHODS. Since research demonstrates that
no single practice can work in isolation, schools should set in motion multiple
testing mechanisms. Because teachers often have the most direct knowledge of
their students' abilities, they must continue to be involved in their evaluation,
preferably through formalized channels (Nelson, 1986; Rossell & Baker,
1988). In addition, parents should actively consult on Home Language Surveys,
not simply fill out a form. Finally, standardized tests should measure all
aspects of students' language use, not just achievement or oral skills; they
should be only one measure among several, and never the sole means of determining
eligibility for language services (Nelson, 1986).
Clearly, the experiences of the boy from China are not unique.
He, though, is lucky; at the insistence of his parents, he is now in a different
school, where he has received help with his English language skills as a supplement
to his normal curriculum. His English--and his performance in the classroom--has
improved dramatically.
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