LING 612-Dr. Coles-Ritchie

Abedi, J., (2004). The no child left behind act and english language learners: Assessment and accountability issues. Educational Researcher, 33(1), 4-14.

This is a tough article for me to respond to. As I read it last night and reread again just now, the only question that came to mind what how long do they store their data? This article has a lot of data and I am sure that data collected from other years are stored somewhere in files. I was just wondering how long documents are kept and do they ever dispose of any? I am wondering that because I read somewhere along the way that after 7 years it is safe to destroy personal documents. This assessment data is a lot and sensitive material collected since this act was first established. That was my question, how long is data kept and stored? I am trying to keep my data and materials locked and organized. Sometimes I'm not always organized, but I do lock material.
Anyway, back to the real issues in this article. First off it starts by explaining the 6 LEP assessment issues as they relate to AYP reporting: Inconsistencies, Sparse LEP populations, Lack of LEP subgroup stability, Measurement quality of AYP instruments, LEP baseline scores, and LEP cut off points. There has always been discrepancies in any form of standardized tests when testing students of a different culture and language. The assessment for the NCLB act is no different in that sense that it is culturally biased and not a valid way to test students of a diverse nation such as the US. Especially now , we are in need to change and culturally relevant material. But who's to say this is the only means to test our youth? I know educators are educated enough to know and understand critical pedagogy in multiple means and furthering that in assessments in different modes. This is just one assessment in one time of the year with the students who happened to be present. We all hope that the planets are aligned at this given time. I do like how this article suggests and provided effective ways to help LEP students. I do think that further studies and discussions are in order for this assessment. Some topic ideas are :other methods of assessment such as authentic assessment to show what each child is really capable of , revisiting this assessment to meet LEP needs, or staff development training on language sheltering. I saw that as one of the suggestions and I agree that we do need more qualified staff especially language specialists.