Abstract
Since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, statewide accountability measures have drastically changed the way schools address achievement gaps among various student populations. One of the negative consequences of this legislation includes the overreliance on standardized assessment programs across all states. However, one of the populations most impacted are students who are classified as English learners and receive special education services. The following chapter highlights some of the issues English learners in special education programs have faced in Texas. This chapter also makes recommendations for appropriately assessing this student population to truly measure their academic achievement.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
We use the term, Latinx rather than Latino or Latina to provide a gender-neutral perspective.
- 3.
A student of limited English proficiency, otherwise known as LEP, is defined by the Texas Education Code (TEC) Sec. 29.052 as a student whose primary language is other than English and whose English language skills are such that the student has difficulty performing ordinary classwork in English. The state’s deficient label of LEP and ELL are used interchangeably by the TEA and educators, however, for the purposes of this chapter, we refer to all English language learners, including those who are not enrolled in bilingual or English as second language programs, as ELLs.
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Torres Ovando, E.M., Maddocks, D.L.S., Valenzuela, A. (2019). Assessment and English Language Learners in Special Education. In: DeMatthews, D.E., Izquierdo, E. (eds) Dual Language Education: Teaching and Leading in Two Languages. Language Policy, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10831-1_4
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