Thread: IL: Officials Reject State Test Requests

Officials Reject State Test Requests
Posted on: Wednesday, 30 July 2008, 21:00 CDT

By Emily Krone

ekrone@@dailyherald.com

U.S. Department of Education officials this month rejected Illinois requests to ease the blow of dropping a special test for students who are still learning English.

The Illinois State Board of Education requested, and federal officials refused, to allow districts to exclude the scores of English learners when calculating whether they met state and federal standards.

The state also asked permission to discount the math and reading scores of students who have been in the Illinois school system for fewer than two years.

The law already allows districts to toss out the scores of students who have lived in the country for less than a year.

State Superintendent Christopher Koch called the requested accommodations "common sense" in a letter to the department of education.

But a representative from the Department of Education replied that those accommodations would undermine the law's intent, which is to hold schools accountable for student achievement.

Local educators have blasted state and federal officials for forcing students new to English to take tests that rely heavily on language proficiency, and therefore won't fairly assess what students do or don't know.

But federal officials say most of those students have had ample time to learn the language.

In a letter to Koch, Kerri Briggs of the Education Department noted that "the great majority of (English learners) are second- and even third-generation residents of the United States."

Of the 21,000 third-graders in Illinois enrolled in bilingual education classes in 2007, about 14,000 had been in the program for three years or longer, according to state statistics.

Third-graders are the youngest students tested under the federal accountability law. The number of students in bilingual classes decreases as the grade level increases.

By 11th grade, only 4,800 students remained enrolled in bilingual classes, according to state statistics. Of those, 1,500 had been in the system for three years or longer.

Still, even those students who have been in the country for three or four years might have large gaps in their education, Palatine- Schaumburg High School District 211 Superintendent Roger Thornton said.

"If in fact it is possible for a kid to come to our culture and be here a year or two and achieve standards, then our standards are pretty low - and they're not," he said.

(c) 2008 Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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SPOON FEED, CHEAT ON THE TEST RESULTS, AND ETC. BELIEVE ME IT HAPPENS.. HAVE SEEN IT HAPPEN

Kids learn language very fast when they are exposed to it early on. This is discriminatory against English-speaking.

GOOD! Two years is way more than enough time to learn English! ESL should NOT be taught bilingually and actually slows the process. Total immersion is the only way.

There is NO excuse for 2nd-4th generation Americans to not know English, that's called laziness and failure! It should also be tagged as child abuse.

Time to stop lowering the bar and promoting illiterate, lazy, could care less students and make force them to improve.

When the figures are in, we will see just how low Chicago schools have sunk and are failing OUR kids, to cater to children of illegal aliens.

In a letter to Koch, Kerri Briggs of the Education Department noted that "the great majority of (English learners) are second- and even third-generation residents of the United States."

Bingo......they are not assimilating or making any effort to learn the language. And why should they bother when we cater to them so they never have too? No one else got this long to get with the program. Enough time has passed to keep using this excuse anymore.

If in fact it is possible for a kid to come to our culture and be here a year or two and achieve standards, then our standards are pretty low - and they're not," he said.

The heck they aren't low. They can't count change, they can't read but they are whizzes on the computer. They are giving these kids highschool diplomas and they can't pass a basic college entrance exam without taking elementary classes to catch up to where they should be. Take the computer away and I doubt they could function at all.

I went from english to french in one year (5th grade) parents lived in Europe and guess want i swam! And trust me French is not exactly easy!
So i am sorry get off yoru back sides and learn/assimilate.

GOOD for the Feds!!

Are the tides a-turning against illegals? It has to be our economy.
What a great side effectof our painful economy..

O HO, This kind of rebukes what they keep shoving down our throats about how the 2nd and 3rd etc. generations learn english and assimilate RIGHT!

n a letter to Koch, Kerri Briggs of the Education Department noted that "the great majority of (English learners) are second- and even third-generation residents of the United States."

O HO, This kind of rebukes what they keep shoving down our throats about how the 2nd and 3rd etc. generations learn english and assimilate RIGHT!

Sure does! They USED to, but not anymore. They're too busy trying to get everyone to speak Spanish to be concerned or bothered about learning English.