EdWeek reports today that the two federally-funded initiatives to build assessment systems for the Common Core, PARCC and Smarter Balanced (sounds like the butter substitute), have largely ignored the possibility of creating parallel versions of their tests in languages other than English - notably Spanish. One issue is that PARCC and Smarter Balanced "have member states with vastly different approaches to testing English-language learners. Arizona, for example, is an "English-only" member state in PARCC, while a fellow member, New York, requires that assessments be made available in multiple languages for students still learning English". Now the League of United Latin American Citizens is calling on the PARCC system to have a parallel Spanish version. There's plenty of states where bilingual education is alive and well, and two-way immersion programs have been gaining popularity as well. Assessment in two languages, when instruction in both is delivered, is a massive issue that should be discussed by these assessment mega-groups.
|
RSS Feed