Washington Post - "Test of Wills"

Test of Wills
Virginia may have backed down in a showdown over the No Child Left Behind Act, but there's no loser.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007; Page A20

FAIRFAX COUNTY and other Virginia school districts blinked in their game of chicken with the federal government over the No Child Left Behind Act. It was the right thing to do. Continued confrontation over the issue of how to test students who speak limited English would only have hurt students.

After months of vowing to defy the national testing rules -- even if it meant a loss of federal funds -- local officials last week backed down. As reported by The Post's Maria Glod, the educators rather grudgingly said they would accede to the federal requirement that students with limited English be tested on grade-level core subject matter as well as their English skills.

It's clear that the threat of millions in federal dollars being withheld, which would have affected entire districts, is what changed their minds -- despite the rather sanctimonious claim that they wouldn't sacrifice their principles, or the interests of children, to money. The argument of local officials is that it's wrong to give students who are just starting to learn English the same test that is given to those who are fluent in the language. Certainly, children should be given appropriate tests. But by not testing these students with rigor, Virginia gave them short shrift. Indeed, if there were inappropriate tests, Virginia had only itself to blame.

Throughout the high-profile dispute, which became a proxy for every complaint with No Child Left Behind, the U.S. Education Department was unfairly portrayed as rigid and unreasonable. The department, which sometimes has been too lenient in enforcing its mandates, was right to insist that Virginia obey the law. After all, this requirement has been in place since 1994, predating No Child Left Behind. Moreover, the law makes sense. Students who are learning to speak English should be held to the same standards as their English-speaking counterparts. If schools are not held accountable for the job they do with these students, the students become invisible and are overlooked. How else to explain that 56 percent of students classified as "English-learning" in grades 6 to 12 were actually born in the United States? The implication of that figure, drawn from a 2005 study by the Urban Institute, is that the children passed through elementary grades in the United States and still did not become proficient in English.

The school systems that have had the most success with their English-learners have done so not by excusing them from work but by mentoring them, pushing them and testing them. Certainly, there is an argument to be made that some of the tests in use are not up to the task. One good outcome of the recent dispute was to draw attention to this issue. Congress, as it debates the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, would do well to consider developing a national model to assess the skills of these children with particular needs.