As her students prepare to take their tests to exhibit English proficiency, the atmosphere, writes Park,  becomes military at best, prison-like at worst. Regulations are distributed. Teachers are warned that state examiners may appear unannounced to look for infractions of the myriad rules...  Scare tactics are used to try to assure that the testing activity remains uncontaminated by human desire, fear, or simple boredom

Park, Elizabeth

English

EDUCATE (Bank Street College of Education)

Occasional Paper Series Volume 2009 Number 22 Classroom Life in the Age of Accountability Article 7 March 2009 Confounded and Compounded by Language: English Language Learners and High Stakes Testing Elizabeth Park Follow this and additional works at: https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series  Part of the Accessibility Commons, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, and the Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons Recommended Citation Park, E. (2009). Confounded and Compounded by Language: English Language Learners and High Stakes Testing. Occasional Paper Series, 2009 (22). Retrieved from https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2009/iss22/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Educate. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Paper Series by an authorized editor of Educate. For more information, please contact kfreda@bankstreet.edu.  CONFOUNDED AND COMPOUNDED BY LANGUAGE:ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS AND HIGH STAKES TESTINGelizabeth parkResearch literature has suggested that the language background of students mayimpact performance on standardized assessments. The results of data analysesfrom several locations nationwide support the findings of existing literature,which indicate that assessment results may be confounded by language back-ground, particularly those with limited English proficiency. Abedi. (2003, p.x)It’s Saturday morning. I’m in a classroom in the school where I’ve taughtfor ten years, with adolescents who sacrificed their weekend morning sleep to beat school by 9:00 a.m. They’re here for a prep course focused on the upcomingannual high stakes standardized test taken by every eighth grader in the state.Among the group are students new to the country and the language. They’re vari-ously called English Language Learners (ELLs), ESL (English as a SecondLanguage) students, or Limited English Proficient (LEP) students, depending onthe context. ELL, the most recent designation, emphasizes student agency, and ismy preference. LEP is generally used in analytical contexts, when students arereferred to in terms of their needs. ESL often describes curriculum and curricularmaterial. In practice, distinctions aren’t so clear, and the terms are often usedinterchangeably.There’s irony to this moment. I am often enraged at these tests, particularlywhen I think of Abedi’s (2003) research, which clearly indicates that the languagecomponent of high stakes testing in any subject area—literature, writing, math, orscience—creates interference that prevents ELLs from demonstrating what theyknow. In our state, only the newest ELLs take the test in their first language, andonly if that language is Spanish. Those newcomers, who may or may not haveexperienced high stakes tests in their first countries, will deal with the pressures ofthis testing process on top of the confusion of adjusting to a new culture. Theothers, who’ve been in the country for over a year, are required to respond to thesame prompts as mainstream students; even when extra time is allowed, the com-pounded challenge of taking the test and taking it in a language that isn’t com-pletely clear to them can be confounding. Sometimes it seems that they have to be50 bank street college of educationoccasional paper series park 51Ginger Rogers, doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards while wearinghigh heels.The test I’m preparing my students for is part of the accountability move-ment that Shore and Wright (2000) discuss in their work on audit culture in edu-cation. These researchers describe the migration of this phenomenon from busi-ness to education and situate it in a Foucauldian sense as an extension of govern-mental power intended to create self-governing subjects. Our administrators arenow subjects, and teachers are on their way to subjecthood. The adults of theschool will be held accountable, not the students. However, student performanceon the test is the indicator of school success or failure: it is the mercury that mayindicate a fever, though it isn’t the fever itself. And if, as may happen this year,the school’s test scores once again fail to meet levels defined as acceptable by fed-eral and state laws, our school may be a candidate for state action. If the statetakes the school over, the administration will be the first target for change.There is another factor to the accountability mix: the community. We are asmall town in New Jersey, one in which there is a strong sense of “us” and “them.”“Us” shifts deictically and can define those who are of European or Africanancestry, those who are members of a long-established Puerto Rican group, thosewho are legal immigrants from a number of Caribbean, Central, and SouthAmerican countries, and those who are here illegally. As a poor community, weare at times defensive, at times embarrassed, and at times angry. Those emotionscan be directed by any group of us at any other group of us, or at outsiders.Property values are a large part of this complexity. When test scores drop, so doproperty values; housing in our town is comprised largely of single-familydwellings that are the major financial asset of most of their owners. The ownersvote in school board elections, and their ballots can reflect their dissatisfaction.I have lived in the town for 20 years; as the mother of a racially mixedfamily, I chose to be here mostly because of the cultural and racial diversity. I havenever taught at another school, except for the colleges at which I’ve been anadjunct. In the middle school, I’ve occasionally taught English Language Arts tostudents in the mainstream, but most of my work has been teaching ESL classesto immigrant students. The latter is the work that moves me deeply. I’mentranced by the mystery of how human beings learn new languages, and com-pelled to know as much as I can about how that happens. I believe profoundlythat reaching native-like proficiency in a new language can be among the mostdifficult cognitive and affective challenges a person can face. When I watch myELL students reach new understandings of how to express themselves in English,or see them embrace a new way of interpreting English texts or speech, I’mthrilled. I’ve seen them struggle, and I’ve struggled with them. My struggle maybe empathetic; it may be analytical as I strive to identify strengths on which tohelp my students build learning; or it may consist of exploring different method-ologies to find the right combination of teaching practices. My students’ strugglesopen a door into a new world, creating an intellectual puzzle with affective com-ponents for me.At the prep course, I discuss the kinds of writing tasks the students will seeon the test. I explain how the testing rooms will be organized, and the process ofdistributing testing materials. We talk about how they may not speak during thetest, or look ahead in the testing booklet. I distribute index cards, and on them Iask the students to write down whatever worries them about the test. Then I askthem to fold the cards several times and write their names on the outside. I col-lect the worries in a bag and place it at the front of the room, saying they mayhave their worries back at the end of the session. One of the students remarksthat it’s a “cool” idea. I’ve done this in previous years, and students seem to bene-fit from concretizing worry and being able to put it aside.The work for today’s session is responding to a prompt that introducescharacters and a problem. Students are to write a short story describing how themain character solved the problem. After describing the type of prompt, andleading a discussion on how to respond, I distribute paper, pencils, and a sampleprompt. The students begin writing.This is a perfect opportunity to do some focused observation. Over theyears, I’ve learned that watching students and reflecting on what I’ve seen createslayers of rich understanding and offers insights I couldn’t otherwise have.Students also find themselves more comfortable when they know their teacherswatch them, not as spies or with intrusive intent, but with care and concern. Aoki(in Pinar and Irwin, 2005, pp. 193-195) explains how “pedagogical watchfulness”can be a way of witnessing that gives students a sense of connection and ground-ing when their worlds are sundered. Another layer of this phenomenon is thepresence of a “friendly but unobtrusive observer,” as Wyatt-Brown (1993, p. 302)describes the observation strategies James Britton used as a teacher and D.W.Winnicott used as a child psychologist. Hall (2000) writes “…culture in our mod-ern urban settings is best understood discursively as an ‘open text’… Identity isnot already there; rather, it is a production, emergent, in process” (p. xi). It is this52 bank street college of educationoccasional paper series park 53emergent identity I’m looking for as I decide which student to observe moreclosely for a few minutes.My gaze falls on Roscío.1 She is staring out the window, clearly notengaged in the task at hand. She seems aware that someone is watching. Sheturns to me, and I try to pack encouragement and understanding into the smile Igive her. I want it to be like a cartoon suitcase, bulging with clothes in the mid-dle, a shirtsleeve or two protruding from openings that strain against buckledstraps. I will my smile to communicate that I understand, that I will not repri-mand her, that she is safe.Three months ago, at 7:00 a.m., Roscío arrived at school after two days’absence. One of the teachers found her at her locker, where by all the rules shehad no business being; students aren’t admitted to the building until 7:30 a.m.When Roscío didn’t respond to the teacher’s questions, the teacher became insis-tent. When she still didn’t respond, the teacher pressed her even further. That’swhen the vice principal intervened, taking Roscío to one of the Spanish-speakingguidance counselors. Roscío told the counselor she’d come to school early becauseshe didn’t want to be alone anymore. Her mother had died in the local hospitalthe afternoon before, and Roscío had then made her way home and spent thenight alone in the apartment she and her mother had shared. Our guidance coun-selor drove her from school that morning to her sister’s home, where she stilllives.Over the course of the next day, we learned more about Roscío’s home life.She’d lived for most of her 13 years with her father in Veracruz. Her parentsdivorced when Roscío was seven, and her mother came to the U.S. to be nearolder children already living here. Roscío traveled from Mexico to visit her moth-er from time to time; apparently relations were cordial all around. Then hermother was diagnosed with a terminal cancer. The family decided Roscío shouldspend time with her mother while it was still possible, so she traveled to the U.S.and moved into her mother’s tiny apartment. It was there Roscío spent the nightalone after her mother’s death, keeping a solitary vigil she finally broke by walk-ing to school the following morning.When I look at Roscío across the classroom during our prep session, Iwonder how she interprets the school’s focus on preparing for the test. I wonder1While these stories are true, the students' names and certain other factors that mightdivulge their identities have been changed.if she had testing experiences of this kind in Mexico, and if so, what they mighthave meant for her. Here, though the stakes are high for the school, the results ofthese tests will have little academic impact on ELLs. Instead, teacher recommen-dations, local school guidelines about time spent in the program, and the resultsof assessment tools specifically designed to measure English proficiency willdetermine Roscío’s placement for next year. In the classroom where I’m preparingstudents who don’t speak English to take a test that may determine the fate of theschool, I look again at Roscío and ask myself what I’m doing here. Why have Itaken on the responsibility for showing these students what they will be facing ina month or so, for trying to give them instruction in how to take the test? I don’tbelieve in standardized tests. I don’t believe that young people should be subjectedto the kind of pressure that can make them freeze, cheat, or just give up.I think of a student from Ecuador who enrolled in school two days beforethe test. Placed alongside her ELL peers, given pencils and a test booklet inEnglish, she looked around her, put her head down on the desk, and wept for theentire day. She was reacting as much to the atmosphere of her new school as tothe prospect of a test in a language she didn’t know.The culture of the school changes during the weeklong battery, when eachday is assigned its content area. The change is a response to the “secure” nature ofthe tests. The atmosphere becomes military at best, prison-like at worst.Regulations are distributed. Teachers are warned that state examiners may appearunannounced to look for infractions of the myriad rules. Stories are told of teach-ers in unspecified nearby districts who lost their teaching licenses because stu-dents were observed to be conversing before everyone in the room had completeda test section. The week before testing, all classroom posters are covered, lest theyremind students of the steps of the writing process or hint at ways to interprettext. Administrators make the rounds, performing official inspections, ticking offwhat must be removed or covered, and announcing that on their return theyexpect to find a classroom that passes muster.Students are called to a meeting in which they’re informed that if they aretardy on a testing day, they will spend the day doing silent work and take the testthe following week. They’re told they may not leave their desks during the test.They’re told that if they’re disruptive in any way they’ll be escorted from theclassroom and assigned to in-school suspension. They’re told the penalty forcheating will be out-of-school suspension. In both cases they’ll take the test theweek after their classmates do. They’re told that opening a test booklet before the54 bank street college of educationoccasional paper series park 55teacher announces the test has started could invalidate all of the tests for theentire school, that the school could then be fined tens of thousands of dollars, andthat the test would have to be readministered.As I contemplate this harsh reality, I think of Alberto. He offers a pictureof a student caught in the web of “pernicious insistence on measurable standards,high stakes tests, and accountability that has filtered down to even the youngestchildren and their teachers” (Silin, and Lippman, 2003, pp. 67-68).I watched Alberto for months, hoping to understand him better. He spokeSpanish to his fellow students but never uttered a word of English in class. Thisisn’t unusual newcomer behavior; Krashen is credited with calling attention tothis “preproduction” stage of second language acquisition (Facella, Rampino, andShea, 2003). It’s a period of anywhere from a few weeks to a year, during whichnew ELLs may use silence as a language-learning tool. Instead of talking, theyobserve and listen, gathering data about their new environment and its language.When I learned that Alberto’s parents had left him in Ecuador with hisgrandparents when they came to the U.S. six years before, I felt he might needextra time to adjust to what was essentially a new family. When I found himcheating on quizzes and copying his classmates’ assignments, I withheld judg-ment. When I asked him to read a poem to me in Spanish, he froze. I began tosuspect that he was illiterate. Then, bizarrely, I received a report that he’d madethe only perfect score in the class on the weekly online tracking assessments. Iwas certain it was either a fluke, or that he’d broken the code—or that a friendhad. It wasn’t long before it was discovered that another student had figured outthe programming and shared the secrets with several others, including Alberto.Determined to understand his problems, one day I invited Alberto to sitnext to my desk and asked the students to write about their homes in their firstcountries. Separated from others whose papers he could copy, Alberto wrotenothing. I asked him to stay after class to talk about it. By then, I was convincedthat he was unable to read or write. My observations had also convinced me thathe had developed some very sophisticated perceptual and communicative tech-niques, often bypassing verbal communication so skillfully that you didn’t noticehe hadn’t spoken.I told him, in my broken Spanish, “Yo se que el trabajo de la escuela es muydificil para ti.” (I know that schoolwork is very difficult for you.) He nodded, andwith a half smile his face expressed a sadness that was piercing. Then I told him,“Y tambien yo se que tu eres muy inteligente.” (And I also know that you are veryintelligent.) Tears welled in his eyes and he began to sob. I wondered if anyonehad ever acknowledged to him how hard he had worked to bluff his way throughseven years of schooling without reading or writing. I was filled with respect forthis young man who was mustering ways to cope, and I began to lobby hard forthe special help he deserved. A year later Alberto was transferred into specialeducation classes.I glance at the clock. It’s time, according to the script the state provides, toannounce that the class has ten more minutes to work. I scan the room, gazing atmy test prep class, and sigh. I do know why I’m here. I’m here to know these stu-dents and to know their stories, to provide some sanctuary from a threateningenvironment in which being too intimidated to perform academically becomesmore than a possibility. I’m not yet ready to take on the government agencies thatmandate unreasonable and unreliable assessment measures, but I can help preparestudents by teaching them what to expect.I must remember this as the test marches toward us.56 bank street college of educationoccasional paper series park 57ReferencesAbedi, J. (2003) Impact of student language background on content-based per-formance: Analyses of extant data. CSE report 603. Center for the study ofevaluation. National center for research on evaluation, standards, and stu-dent testing. Graduate school of education & information studies.University of California, Los Angeles.Facella, M., Rampino, K., & Shea, E. (2005). Effective teaching strategies forEnglish language learners. Bilingual Research Journal, (29)1, (209-221).Hall, S. (2000). Foreword. In D. Yon (Ed.), Elusive culture: Schooling, race, andidentity in global times (pp. ix-xii). Albany, NY: State University of NewYork Press.Pinar, W. & Irwin, R. (Eds.). (2005). Curriculum in a new key: The collected worksof Ted. T Aoki. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Shore, C. & Wright, W. (2000). Coercive accountability: The rise of audit culturein higher education. In M. Strathern (Ed.), Audit cultures: Anthropologicalstudies in accountability, ethics, and the academy (pp. 57-89). New York:Routledge.Silin, J. & Lippman, C. ( 2003). Putting the children first: The changing face ofNewark’s public schools. New York: Teachers College Press.Wyatt-Brown, A. (1993). From the clinic to the classroom: D.W.Winnicott,James Britton, and the revolution in writing theory. In P. Rudnytsky (Ed.),Transitional objects and potential spaces: Literary uses of D. W. Winnicott (pp292-305). New York: Columbia University Press.

Confounded and Compounded by Language: English Language Learners and High Stakes Testing

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