Immigration is a hugely controversial, polarizing issue in the United States. And within this issue lies a more difficult and complex one: immigrant students who are English-language learners (ELLs).
And today the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco upheld a previous decision saying that English-only achievement tests and high school exams, mandated under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, are legitimate and rejected arguments by bilingual-education groups and 9 school districts in the San Francisco-Bay Area. The Act (known also as NCLB) was praised by the Bush Administration as a proactive solution for aiding failing schools with more resources and funding. And to measure success or failure, the act included a requirement for states to test all students in math, reading/language arts once a year for 3rd - 8th graders and once for 10th - 12th graders. How the tests are administered however are decided at the state-level and have been especially challenging for states like California who have minority-majority populations whose primary language is not English. This obstacle has been a very difficult one to overcome and many schools have been penalized (i.e. lack of funding) when students of disadvantaged groups like ELLs and students with learning disabilities fail to meet the academic standards or benchmarks of the previous year.
With the election of Barack Obama, many people in the United States were optimistic about the prospects of dramatic changes to the education system. This week for example Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a speech saying "we need more parents like Sonia Sotomayor's mother," who encouraged the young Sotomayor to study hard and attend college. The message is encouraging and positive, yet identifying specific problems or announcing proposals to combat them have not been made. Perhaps the Obama Administration can start by using these 8 suggestions written by Melissa Lazarín on Center for American Progress.
The reality is, the global economic recession and (lately) the health care debate are hot topics being discussed at the moment, and fixing the failing education system seems to have been put on the back burner. It is a pressing issue the United States cannot continue to ignore, especially with statistics showing that the country itself is going to be a minority-majority population like California in less than 50 years.
For more information, check out:
US Department of Education Official Website
"How to fix No Child Left Behind" on Time.com
"Learning the Language: Arne Duncan" on Education Week
"'No Child' Law is not closing a racial gap" on New York Times
