Who is given tests, & Making assessment practices; Articles for 10/28/08

There have been very similar discussion topics from both articles that spoke to things that worked and things that hindered assessment of Native students. I will begin here with my reflections of the articles in general before I begin the positives and negatives. I really liked the suggestion that Nelson-Barber and Trumball make on page 142 in their Discussion and Conclusions when they said that "In the best possible situation, the school staff would include Native teachers who can help non-Native teachers understand and judge student work. As in any community, continuous information flow between parents and teachers is also critical to understanding students' school performance." This was a very bold and strong sentence to make. I agree with the authors that Native teachers are the go-to experts of their own people. This is not to say only Native teachers are experts and can non-subjectively judge student work and progress, but that we are familiar and are aware, education in the village and in the area. My concern here is that current staff here in my site believe or display actions which hinder and impede Native teachers' knowledge and expertise. It's been a challenge to read all these articles of testing validity, reliability, and funds of knowledge, even Multimodality and Multi education, when I am constantly reminded at work that I am not an asset. I have worked hard and studied more, to be treated as such. It feels like I have not gone far, and I do hear my Native co-workers that feel the same as I do. I am seen but not heard, and my voice and ideas mean nothing. So , what's an educated Native teacher to do? The articles here hit home and I am confronted with constant bombardment of this at work and in my studies.
Moving along to the current assessment situations that hinder native and/or ELLs. These seem to be represented in both articles so I will list them: testing is usually standardized tests, which do not reflect the language, culture and local knowledge of ELLs, students are not able to be creative in such tests, in other words the test answers, content, and administration are predetermined, tests content are written elsewhere, does not take into account context of students current language strengths, does not account for dialect differences, tests are not always on-going often just a snapshot of one given week in the given year (as in high stakes tests), and students are given status of LEP because they may be viewed as "silent", which means students' heritage and cultures are not seen as relevant. I think the list would go on. These are some examples from the two articles.
The positives here is that more and more research is showing that culturally relevant material are proving to be an asset in high scores among Native students. Another is that more researchers and educators are reaching out to Native languages and cultures to find answers and to help create programs such as the Math in the cultural context creators, and the Linguistics department of UAF. Alternative methods of assessment other than standardized testing are areas being researched and sought after for a more balanced snapshot of student and ELL progress, and that progress and assessment is on-going. Native teachers are being trained in these particular areas so that the areas in assessment can produce culturally relevant curricula and matching forms of assessment which are reliable and valid.
One thing I also noticed that seem to be reflected in both articles is Solano-Flores' conclusion is that "Valid testing can not be achieved if we focus solely on the proficiency of ELLs in English but fail to examine linguistic factors involved in the development, adaptation, administration, and scoring of the tests."(p. 196). This brings me back to my opening where Native teachers are important part of the rating process. It's amazing how one person can make or break how others feel and perform in school and work.