After Early Success with English Learners, Can a District Keep Its Momentum?
In The News Piece in Education Week
Jan. 30, 2023
Leslie Villegas, Senior Policy Analyst, Education Policy, was cited in an article by Education Week about if a small district in Alabama can keep its momentum after early success with English learners.
Grimes was among those who urged the state to pass the law, arguing that it helps boost teacher morale. The scores alone, he said, don’t serve as an adequate accountability measure, because the tests are administered in English to students in the process of learning the language.
Not all observers agree. Leslie Villegas, a senior policy analyst with the left-leaning think tank New America, argues that the state missed an opportunity to create a weighted accountability measure that more fairly tracked English learners’ linguistic and academic progress—by factoring in scores of former English learners for a more holistic view of English learners’ academic achievement. The approach taken by Alabama’s legislators, she argues, sends an implicit message that the group’s progress doesn’t matter as much as others, which she fears can lead to negative repercussions down the line.
For years, Alabama leaders thought of English-learner families as simply passing through onto other states, Mackey acknowledged.
Read the full article here.