Federal rules on language testing muddled, state says

It's a classic Catch-22, state education officials say: The federal government holds public schools accountable for improving, as a group, the academic performance of students who don't speak English well -- but once the students learn English, they leave that group, so their improvement doesn't count in the federal calculation.

Pete Bylsma, director of research and evaluation for the state education department, likens it to giving a hospital no credit for curing patients because when they recover their health and are discharged, they're replaced by new patients, and the place is constantly full of sick people.

"When we have to test students that can't read the test and can't write the answers, it's going to be real hard for them to pass the test," he said yesterday.

Bylsma helped write an annual report on bilingual education that was released this week by the state. Although the report is required by the Legislature and is not directly related to the accountability system incorporated in the federal No Child Left Behind law, the release has drawn increased attention to state officials' gripes about how the law treats English-language learners.

No Child Left Behind, signed by President Bush in 2002, increases federal education aid targeted at disadvantaged children but subjects schools receiving the aid to ever-more-stringent penalties if their students don't perform well enough. The penalties include possible dismissal of the principal and teachers and reorganization as a state-run or charter school.

Student performance in reading and math is measured by each state's accountability system. Here, that's the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, a standardized test administered each spring in grades four, seven and 10.

To avoid the federal penalties, enough students must pass the test each year, with the target percentage increasing gradually to 100 percent in 2014. The law requires success by each of eight subcategories of students, among them students with limited proficiency in English.

That's where the Catch-22 takes its bite, officials say.

In 2003, 26.2 percent of fourth-graders with limited English proficiency met the WASL standards for reading, compared with 67.2 percent of all students statewide. In math, 21.9 percent of that group met the standard.

In seventh grade, only 7.8 percent of the English-language learners met the reading standard and 6.9 percent met the math standard.

In 10th grade, 13 percent met the reading standard. In math, the success rate was 9.4 percent.

In each case, the success rate for English-language learners was far behind the rate for all students, and well short of the No Child Left Behind threshold.

"The WASL is not fair or valid for (English-language learners) because they cannot speak, read or write English," Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson argued in a proposal for No Child Left Behind revisions published last month.

And in terms of the law's ultimate goal, "it is impossible for this group ... to meet 100 percent proficiency," the proposal said.

Bergeson proposes that English-language learners be excluded from No Child Left Behind accountability for their first three years in the schools, or until they have learned English.

In the meantime, accountability should be based on how well the students are learning English, not on their standard academic performance, her proposal says.

The report released this week actually covers the 2001-02 school year. Among its findings:

Programs for students of limited English proficiency included 72,215 students statewide. Although that was slightly more than the 2000-01 total, the rate of increase was the smallest in 15 years.

The state spent $44 million on its programs for those students. Local school districts added $12.7 million statewide, and the federal government $2.7 million.

The students spoke a total of 190 different native languages. Spanish was the primary language for 61 percent of the students.

25 local school districts each counted more than 20 native languages among their students. The most highly multilingual district was Kent, with 77 languages. Seattle was second, with 65.

The more that instruction is provided in a student's primary language, the better the student does in school, research shows. But because of the abundance of languages and a shortage of trained teachers, nearly three-quarters of the students receive no instruction in their primary language.

P-I reporter Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8022 or gregoryroberts@seattlepi.com

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