New law will test Hispanic students

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 9:59 a.m.

A group invited by State Superintendent Jack McLaughlin Wednesday to give ideas for legislation to help students who speak English as a second language has its work cut out for it -- especially since a new federal law is going to put these students under scrutiny as never before.

"For the first time, students who don't speak English will be monitored through their test scores, and there will be consequences if scores are low," McLaughlin said.

"We have to take steps to teach these students, and take them fast," he said to the room of state board of education members, teachers, Clark County School District employees and activists.

The new law, known as the No Child Left Behind Act, will hold different groups of students accountable to a series of standards over the next three years, including having students for whom English is a second language take a statewide test called TerraNova. Until now, these students and special education students have been generally exempt from taking the test.

If state or district averages are pulled down by the results of these students, federal money may be withdrawn -- up to $300,000 at the state level, and thousands more in individual districts, the state superintendent said.

The law comes at a time when the number of students statewide learning English as a second language grew by 682 percent during the '90s. With 12.4 percent of its students in this category -- 20 percent in Clark County -- Nevada is now sixth nationwide in the percentage of students who are English language learners.

To further complicate matters, the 20 bilingual schools in the Clark County School District with the lion's share of the district's more than 32,000 students who are learning English suffer from a lack of uniform standards.

As director of the district's English Language Learner Program, Melba Madrid-Parra oversees the bilingual schools.

"When I first came to the job a year ago, I was shocked to see each school doing their own thing," she said. "To make matters worse, we don't have data to support one method or another."

Working together with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, her office is currently monitoring the district's bilingual schools and gathering data. The group asked Madrid-Parra to bring examples of schools where students are learning English and scoring well in exams to its next meeting.

The group also said that the current state of teacher training and certification should be examined. Terri Malone, a member of the State Board of Education, suggested mandating a minimum of 3 credits in speaking and reading the second language of the state, or Spanish.

The group meets again in August and hopes to draft legislation by the fall for the February 2003 legislative session.

But another problem outside the realm of education may face the group even after it drafts legislation -- public support.

"Really, for any of our ideas to work, the community has to buy into it," Priscilla Rocha, of the state board of education, said.

"Especially with the idea of bilingual education, people seem to have a fear of what it really means. They think it's going to turn our state into a third world country or something -- but really, when done well, it's just a method for helping students make the transition into learning English."