Mary Ann Lachat - Standards-Based Instruction and Assessment for English Language Learners

Copyright 2004 by Corwin Press

All rights reserved. When forms and sample documents are included, their use is authorized only by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit entities who have purchased the book. Except for that usage, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information:

Corwin Press

A Sage Publications Company

2455 Teller Road

Thousand Oaks, California 91320

www.corwinpress.com

Sage Publications Ltd

1 Olivers Yard

55 City Road

London EC1Y 1SP

United Kingdom

Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

B-42, Panchsheel Enclave

Post Box 4109

New Delhi 110 017 India

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lachat, Mary Ann.

Standards-based instruction and assessment for English language learners/Mary Ann Lachat.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7619-3892-3 (cloth) ISBN 0-7619-3893-1 (paper)

1. Limited English proficient studentsEducationUnited States. 2. EducationStandardsUnited States. 3. Educational tests and measurementsUnited States. I. Title.

LC3731.L33 2004

379.158dc22 2003025426

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

04 05 06 07 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Standards-Based Instruction and Assessment for English Language Learners was written to promote greater understanding of the significant issues that must be addressed to ensure a high quality education for students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Its purpose is to translate the most important findings from the research literature into policy and practice implications that will be useful to teachers; principals; superintendents; school district personnel responsible for assessment; bilingual, ESL, and Title I program directors; and state education leaders.

Todays education reform initiatives emphasize that all students must be held to the same standards for learning, and they must have access to the quality of education necessary to achieve the standards. At the heart of the standards movement is an unprecedented commitment to educate all of the nations children to be effective thinkers, problem solvers, and communicators so they can participate as members of the global community. At the same time, Americas classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse, and students whose first language is not English are the fastest-growing school population. Known as English language learners (ELLs), these children come from very different backgrounds, and they face a considerable challenge in having to respond to the academic demands of school at the same time that they are working toward English proficiency.

Assessment and instructional practices in American schools were neither created nor designed to be responsive to the range of diversity represented in todays ELL population, but current reforms in instruction and assessment are being viewed hopefully as offering more effective strategies for educating English language learners. Nevertheless, of equal concern is that insufficient attention has been given to the cultural and linguistic factors that have an impact on instruction and assessment.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the hopes and concerns of standards-based instruction and assessment for ELLs and their implications for school policies and practices. provides an in-depth overview of standards-based learning practices for ELLs. The final chapter contains a set of policy and practice recommendations that support a high quality education for English language learners. The three resources provide additional self-assessment surveys and other tools for planning and developing programs and for assessing a schools policies and practices against the indicators of a high-performing school.

School and classroom practices must be consistent with our hopes for children and our vision of achieving both excellence and equity in our education system. Implementing sounder practices for English language learners will require teachers and administrators to make different decisions about instruction and assessment, develop greater awareness of how cultural and linguistic factors impact on learning, and embrace the belief that children from highly diverse backgrounds can learn at high levels. The findings of the researchers whose work is reflected here provide important perspectives that can support the work of teachers and administrators.

T he contributions of the following reviewers are gratefully acknowledged:

Dr. Roberta E. Glaser
Teacher
St. Johns Public Schools
St. Johns, MI

Dr. Maria E. Stallions
Assistant Professor of Education
Barry University
Miami Shores, FL

Dr. Margo Gottlieb
Director, Assessment and Evaluation
Illinois Resource Center
Des Plaines, IL

Dr. Sharon Toomey Clark
Educational Consultant
Clark & Associates
Claremont, CA

Dr. Mary Ann Lachat is Co-founder and President of the Center for Resource Management, Inc. (CRM), a professionalservices firm dedicated to helping schools achieve equity and high quality learning for all students. She has more than 30 years of experience with school reform initiatives at state and local levels, and she has worked extensively with state education agencies and school district teams in addressing issues for diverse learners. Since the late 1990s she has written and presented on standards-based learning and assessment for English language learners. Her work has focused on translating what has been learned in the research into practical strategies and guidelines for teachers, principals, and school district administrators. Her publications for the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University include: Standards, Equity, and Cultural Diversity (1999) and What Policymakers and School Administrators Need to Know About Assessment Reform (1999).

Holding all students to high academic standards is the centerpiece of a national agenda to improve schools and ensure that no child is left behind in the journey toward the American dream. The evolution of standards over the past decade has been driven by the need to define what all students should learn in school in order to participate successfully in the twenty-first century. It has also been driven by widespread recognition that todays world requires many skills that are not being taught in schools. The issue is not whether schools are better or worse than they used to be, but whether public schools are preparing all children to succeed in todays world. Todays workplace already requires that individuals understand multidimensional problems, design solutions, plan their own tasks, evaluate results, and work cooperatively with others. These requirements demand that American students learn a new set of competencies and foundation skills, and they demand an approach to education that is very different from the education system that served the industrial age (Lachat, 1994).