From the article this situation (though it has its complexities) still carries a whiff of the fundamental, famous weakness in contemporary US public education.

Instead of parents and teachers both working to help kids meet an important, widespread proficiency benchmark, get rid of the benchmark. Problem "solved." Parents and educators rationalize this type of cop-out via different arguments (it helps if they frame the kids' abilities as being somehow fixed, preordained, incapable of growth -- so that the testing becomes the only thing subject to change), but the upshot is to let both groups of adults off the hook of responsibility. (The kids, as usual, pay the eventual price.)

It's no wonder that the average (not just marginal) elementary-school student here in Santa Clara County is two years behind peers in many European countries, where performance to standards is embraced as valuable, and where the culture is for families and educators to work together to achieve this performance (rather than to attack the standards).

Wow! Can we send Nelson back to high school for some remedial statistics classes? Proposing that ELLs exceed the district average on the ELA assessment means that by definition half of them would always fail to meet the standards each year. As much as I would love to think that all the kids in Mountain View are above average that just isn't mathematically possible.

If we held all students to the districts students to the same standards that Nelson proposes for ELLs then half of our students would always be place in remedial ELA each year. I doubt that white parents would put up with this as it would not prepare their children for college level work. If we don't hold non-ELLs to the same standard how is that not racism?

Why can't we use an assessment that actually measures a students ability in English as a foreign language like the TOEFL? The SBAC is not intended to be a TOEFL, so why would we use it as such?

The districts handling of this issues boggles my mind!

"The state could eventually require a specific benchmark of performance on the SBAC test, he said, but right now it's up to the districts to decide." This is more an algebra problem than a stat problem. MEAN = ( mean( EO) * EO population + mean( ELL) * ELL population)/ total population. If this exceeded the state SBAC test proficiency level, then use the state test level. To answer Dr. Rudolph's variability problem - do a running 2 year mean, rather than just a single year result. In our district EO > ELL. Since the SBAC is before ELL reclassification calculations, the recursion inherent in this algorithm does not lead to mathematical instability.
BTW - my state secondary math credential went past renewal a few years ago. But I think this is OK.

Steven Nelson, these are my own opinions, and not those of the MVWSD

Regardless, of what you guys want to call it, it is, of course, a ridiculous idea that will not get traction. More wasted time dealing with the resident loon.
One day we won't have to deal with Steve Nelson on our school board. That is a fact we can all get behind and be comforted by.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Lowering the bar for Els is the path of least resistance.

The fact that this superintenednet is pushing it speaks volumes about who he is and what her stands for.

Lowering the academic bar so that EL students don't miss the opportunity to participate in enriching activities is a false dichotomy. Its not an either/or situation. Els need both high academic standards (with focused support) and enriching activities.

Most of the ELs in MVWSD are also low SES. They are behind the 8-ball when they come to kindergarten. In order to make a dent in the readiness / learning gap, they need a longer school year and academic support outside of the regular school day. This is what the additional funding is designated for.

In order to put the pieces in place to address this need, there is a lot of work to do. Especially dealing with limitations of labor agreements. This is not the path of least resistance, but it is the right thing to do for the ELs.

Lowering the bar is just kicking the can down the road. In the short term, it may result in a higher reclassification rate (from EL to FEP), but when this is based on lowering the academic bar, its an errorenous action. It will affect academic achievement as well as funding (remember LCFF is based on number of ELs). MVLAHS will continue to inherit under-prepared ELs and the achievement gap will persist.

This superintendent doesn't know what he is doing.

Correction:

The fact that this superintenednet is pushing it speaks volumes about who he is and what HE stands for.

Also - the Voice should interview the administrators who are not in agreement with this position to lower the academic bar. They will likely echo my thoughts.

Superintendent Rudolph is in favor of keeping the standard at "proficient," not lowering the standard. He is definitely not in favor of "lowering the bar." He said this in the board meeting. The complication is trying to compare the new test scores with the old test scores. The meeting went on so long that most of the other board members did not have an opportunity to provide their own input. This item will be coming back to the board in the spring.
Ellen Wheeler is president of the MVWSD board of trustees

This article presents the discussions of the topic at the board level fairly accurately -- I am still confused about how Educator could read into it that the superintendent was arguing for "lowering the bar", when he was arguing the opposite position.

What is missing is background information on the EL identification, education and reclassification processes. The initial test is unreliable (identified 75% of test takers as English Learners when used on a large representative of incoming English only Kindergarteners), which is why many parents lie on the home language survey used to identify potential ELs (Web Link Once identified students have to jump through a multitude of hoops in order to reclassify, not all of which being strictly related to English language development. And not reclassifying in elementary schools does definitely limit students' options in middle and high schools.

I have argued for "lowering the bar", which in this context means not asking students identified as English learners to perform better than the average of English only students in the state of California in order to get access to the full mainstream curriculum. Because when for the purpose of reclassification "proficient" was set to proficient and above on the STAR, and becomes "standards met or above" on the SBAC/CAASPP this is not keeping the bar at the same level: statewide ~49% of EO students in 3rd-8th met or exceeded standards on the CAASPP in 2015, vs 65% of the same students meeting proficiency on the STAR in 2013, making this new criteria 33% harder to meet than the older one used by MVWSD, and 57% harder than the state recommendation (making a probably worse case assumption that the students scoring basic are evenly distributed across the range). It also puts the cut scores for "proficiency" above the EO mean for grades 3 to 5.

The root of the problems go deeper, and the district needs to do a vastly better job with its English learners, especially students who have been in the local school system since K. But holding kids back because the district is struggling to align instruction with the new Common Core standards seems deeply unfair to me. Yes, eventually a recommendation will come from the state to use the new test for reclassification. But for now the CA department of education has carefully held back from doing so, and I don't see a need to rush in before they figure out what a reasonable cut-off is on that test.

One thing Educator does identify properly is the ugly fact that the more students loose the EL tag, the less money for the district (and, although I might be interpreting wrong, the less money for MVLAHSD?). On the other hand most of the long term ELs in the district are mostly also socio-economically disadvantaged, so under LCFF it shouldn't make much of a difference. Especially when in years past the district has amazingly enough not been able to fully spend its restricted EL funding.

How about we raise the standards of this districts administrators and board. Wheelers been with this board way to long.