Personal Interest

I have been a K-12 ELL teacher for five years now. My interest in the validity of standardized assessments regarding ELLs comes from the large amount of time I have spent either “teaching to the test” or proctoring the actual test. When the testing window opens, my instructional time is often taken away and replaced with proctoring ELL testing for about a month. The stress on some children including crying and obvious anxiety is apparent. Students will be sent home sick due to the strains of test anxiety and the pressures to do well. Often these children come from successful academic backgrounds and want to show their knowledge, but just are not able to in English. My students will often stare at the computer screen or pick random choices in an effort to just get the assessment done. I don’t feel that the state administrators who choose these assessments and regulations factor in our growing multilingual population.

I question what they are actually measuring when a child with no English is forced to sit through weeks of testing where they have no idea what any of the words mean, and just pick and choose answers. Testing in this way does not seem to create valid or reliable data of what is trying to be measured. To me, a test which is labeled as “high-stakes” must be valid, reliable, and fair to all populations that are being tested if scores are going to be used to make significant future decisions. Otherwise, scoring leads to inaccurate interpretations of knowledge, skills, and abilities of ELL learners.

I am passionate about further researching this topic because it has been heartbreaking for me to witness some students struggle with standardized assessments and fail in a language that they are labeled as learning.