This book explores how high-stakes tests mandated by No Child Left Behind have become de facto language policy in U.S. schools, detailing how testing has shaped curriculum and instruction, and the myriad ways that tests are now a defining force in the daily lives of English Language Learners and the educators who serve them.

In the wake of recent federal legislation entitled No Child Left Behind, high-stakes standardized testing for accountability purposes is being emphasized in educational systems across the U.S. for all students – including English Language Learners (ELLs). Yet language proficiency mediates test performance, so ELLs typically receive scores far below those of other students. This book explores how tests have become de facto language policy in schools, shaping what is taught in school, how it is taught, and in what language(s) it is taught. In New York City, while most schools responded to testing by increasing the amount of English instruction offered to ELLs, a few schools have preserved native language instruction instead. Moreover, this research documents how tests are a defining force in the daily lives of ELLs and the educators who serve them.

Signed into law in 2002, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) promised to revolutionize American public education. Originally supported by a bipartisan coalition, it purports to improve public schools by enforcing a system of standards and accountability through high-stakes testing. Many people supported it originally, despite doubts, because of its promise especially to improve the way schools serve poor children. By making federal funding contingent on accepting a system of tests and sanctions, it is radically affecting the life of schools around the country. But, argue the authors of this citizen's guide to the most important political issue in education, far from improving public schools and increasing the ability of the system to serve poor and minority children, the law is doing exactly the opposite. Here some of our most prominent, respected voices in education-including school innovator Deborah Meier, education activist Alfie Kohn, and founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools Theodore R. Sizer-come together to show us how, point by point, NCLB undermines the things it claims to improve: * How NCLB punishes rather than helps poor and minority kids and their schools * How NCLB helps further an agenda of privatization and an attack on public schools * How the focus on testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms * And they put forward a richly articulated vision of alternatives. Educators and parents around the country are feeling the harshly counterproductive effects of NCLB. This book is an essential guide to understanding what's wrong and where we should go from here.

Sometimes you need to hear the story from the beginning. The Miseducation of English Learners examines the initial policy impact of Structured English Immersion (SEI), an English-only program mandated for English Learners (ELs) in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts in the United States. The book features analyses of: the legal context and parameters of SEI; research history on SEI; SEI language policy and policy implementation according to situated context; and the educational priorities and legal rights of ELs. The book examines the history of SEI in the educational research literature and as it has been interpreted in the context of the legal requirement for schools to take “appropriate action” to meet the needs of ELs following the historic Lau v. Nichols (1974) court decision. The Miseducation of English Learners also presents and considers the implementation of SEI in comparative contexts from various perspectives including teacher education, the classroom, and legal. In several of the chapters, SEI implementation is examined in concert with other factors that have effected the teaching and progress of ELs such as Senate Bill 2042 (2001) that overhauled the teacher education process in California, and the federal No Child Left Behind legislation (signed into law on January 8, 2002). Moreover, the book provides implications and recommendations for teaching, research, advocacy, and policy change. The Miseducation of English Learners addresses and invites the readers to consider the following key questions: • How “appropriate” is the mandated SEI program for ELs, both in substance and in the one-year duration as specified in the three voter-initiated propositions (Proposition 227, Proposition 203, and Question 2)? • What issues, themes, and patterns can be noted in the implementation of SEI in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts? • Why might the student outcomes not show the desired results in measures such as achievement test scores or dropout rates? • What necessary changes are called for in order to enhance (or in some cases supplant) the SEI programs and services in place for ELs? • Are ELs, parents, and other stakeholders able to thoughtfully select desired and optimal instructional programs, and participate meaningfully in the educational process of language minority students under the SEI mandates?

A collection of 18 essays addressing the policy and politics of educating English language learners. Subjects include demographic change and its educational implications, American responses to language diversity, public controversies over bilingual education, high-stakes testing and its impact on English language learners, and the precarious status of language rights in the USA.

"In Improving On No Child Left Behind: Getting Education Reform Back on Track some of the nation's most respected authorities on education reform examine three central defects of the act: the under-funding of NCLB; the flawed implementation of the standards, testing, and accountability provisions; and major difficulties with the provisions that are designed to allow students to transfer out of failing public schools. The authors detail what needs to be addressed in each of these areas, and propose ways to fix the problems."--BOOK JACKET.

Early literacy strategies for English language learners are differentiated according to five levels of language proficiency."--BOOK JACKET.