Federal policies little help for Newport-Mesa schools

Marisa O’Neil

New federal education policies announced Thursday that aim to take

pressure off immigrant students will have little effect locally.

The changes are designed to give students a year to learn English

well enough to take standardized tests without penalizing schools

that have high immigrant populations. But the amendments, which take

place immediately, won’t help most Newport-Mesa, or even California,

schools, according to Rick Miller, director of communications for the

California Department of Education.

“It’s saying we don’t have to test English learner students for

the first year they’re in the system,” he said. “The reality is, a

vast majority of students enter at the beginning of the system, in

kindergarten and the first grade, and we don’t test them until the

second grade. It doesn’t give a lot of relief for that reason.”

In Newport-Mesa Unified School District, 40% of students enter

English learner programs at the second grade or above, said Karen

Kendall, director of the programs for the district. State testing

begins in the second grade, but the federal data collection doesn’t

start until third grade.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools must show that

they are making sufficient progress toward all of their students

testing at a proficient level in English and math. Schools like

Whittier, Wilson and Pomona elementary schools have a tough time

meeting those goals because many of the students being tested do not

speak English.

Those three schools are listed as “program improvement schools”

under No Child Left Behind because they failed to meet the federal

goals two years in a row. Schools that continue to be classified as

such ultimately risk losing federal funds.

“[The changes] will not push a lot of schools out of Program

Improvement,” Miller said.

While the federal government will throw out that first year’s

score, California will not.

California will still require all students to take the

standardized tests and will continue to report all scores for the

public school’s accountability program, the Academic Performance

Index, he said.

The new federal policy will give students entering school at

third-grade or higher an extra year to play catch-up, but because it

often takes four to seven years to achieve English proficiency, the

one free year given under the changes won’t serve as a cure-all.

“For most students, one year would not affect the time frame it

takes to learn the language,” Kendall said. “They would get the gift

of the first year and wouldn’t take [the tests] again until the next

May, so they would get a little extra time to learn.”

Latino activist Mirna Burciaga is worried, however, that education

officials focus too strongly on test scores and not enough on

training staff to make sure children can truly read and understand

English.

“I don’t think it will make a difference except in money or how a

school is labeled,” she said of the changes. “At one school maybe

they pass the test and don’t have to be labeled as Program

Improvement but the reality is: what are we doing with those

children? Just because they pass tests that doesn’t mean [a school

is] successful or trying to teach in the way they need to.”