Board approves changes to bilingual test-takers

MALDEN, Mass.—Citing a need for better data on bilingual students, the Board of Education has approved a measure that will require more children who have trouble speaking English to take a third-grade reading test.

The decision will affect students taking the national Grade 3 Iowa Reading Test this spring.

“We need to have hard data with regard to the effect of the bilingual program for children of that age,” Board Chairman John Silber said before Tuesday’s vote.

Under the old state regulations, bilingual education students were required to take the Grade 3 Iowa Reading Test only if they were recommended for regular classroom work in the following year.

Now, any bilingual student who entered a U.S. classroom in first-grade or earlier will be required to take the test. Their scores would not be included in an overall district’s performance, but would be used by administrators to measure student skills.

“If after two years they’re not reading in the English language, that’s probably the clearest indication that the methods they used are not adequate,” said Silber, who has been an outspoken critic of bilingual education.

Department of Education officials said Tuesday they were unsure exactly how many more bilingual students would be taking the Iowa test this spring.

Last year, two-thirds of the bilingual students in Massachusetts who entered a U.S. school in the first grade took the Iowa test.

In 1997-98, 45,412 Massachusetts students – roughly 5 percent of the total kindergarten through 12th-grade school population – were considered limited English speakers.

The board is also considering having all second-grade students take a version of the Iowa reading test, and has requested $ 600,000 from the Legislature to implement the program.

If and when that testing program begins, bilingual students who entered American schools in kindergarten would be required to take the Grade 2 test.

In other business Tuesday, the board approved five new charter schools, and gave conditional approval to a sixth.

Getting the green light to open in September are the Media and Technology Charter High School in Boston, the River Valley Charter School in Newburyport and the Robert M. Hughes Charter School in Springfield.

The Frederick Douglass Charter School in Boston and the Lowell Community Charter School will open in September 2000.

The board gave conditional approval to the Springfield Horace Mann Charter School of Essential Studies, provided the school can show that it’s ready to open in 2000.

Charter schools are privately run institutions that operate with state tax dollars. There are 34 in Massachusetts right now.

Board members also received – but didn’t release to the public – the names of the six finalists for the job of education commissioner.

David Driscoll has been holding the job on an interim basis since businessman Frank Haydu III left in July.

Driscoll and Jim Peyser, the head of a conservative think tank, have been the only two candidates whose names have been publicly mentioned thus far. Peyser had been a member of the board, but resigned last month so he could be considered for the position – the most powerful public education job in the state.

The names of the candidates, which could be further winnowed to four or five applicants, could be released next week, and public interviews will begin most likely next month.

Silber will be selecting one representative from each of several interest groups – including teachers, parents, principals, superintendents and school committees – to help with the interview process, although the final hiring decision will be left to the eight-member board.

Also Tuesday, board members heard proposed changes to the science curriculum from a panel of scientists. Among the suggestions: administering the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test in science and technology to fifth-graders, rather than fourth.

The board also began debating curriculum recommendations on genocide and human rights, which was mandated by the Legislature last year.



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