Students with little or no English skills will fail the new state graduation test or drop out without trying, many concerned educators and students say.

Sophomores begin taking AIMS this spring, the first class that must pass the test to graduate. As the date draws near, worry grows because the exam won’t be offered in Spanish — or any language besides English.

Arizona law allows for students in Grades 3, 5 and 8 to take AIMS in Spanish one time. But high-schoolers don’t have an option. They must take it in English, but can use a dictionary.

Forcing students to learn English is a good thing, said Patricia Likens, state Department of Education spokeswoman.

“We’re saying you have to earn your diploma now,” she said. “I’d rather have a 20-year-old finally ready for a diploma rather than see a 17-year-old with no skills get one.”

That makes no sense, counters Cathy Rivera, language acquisition director in Scottsdale Unified School District.

“The message being sent is that if you’re an LEP (limited English proficient) student, you might as well fail,” she said.

Nineteen states require a similar high school graduation test. Last week, a federal judged ruled the Texas test could continue. Critics wanted to can it, saying it discriminated against Blacks and Latinos. A similar lawsuit in Arizona still lingers in court. In some states, LEP students may be exempted from the exam. But not in Arizona.

More than 111,000 of Arizona’s 780,000 students are not proficient in English, Likens said.

Pablo Cipres, who emigrated from Mexico at 13 with no prior schooling, sees a gloomy future.

“The dropout rate is going to double for Spanish-speaking kids,” said Cipres, now 28 and an English as a Second Language teacher with the Phoenix-based Chicanos Por La Causa. “They’ve already got this heavy pressure of failing, and this is just going to kill any motivation they had left.”

School districts are doing what they can, many offering extra tutoring before and after school, during lunch and on Saturday.

If they fail on their first try as sophomores, the state allows students to take the test four more times during the last two years of high school. They can take it as many times as they want after their senior year.

That won’t help many LEP students, said Josue Gonzalez, director of the Center for Bilingual Education and Research at Arizona State University. “You can’t test what you don’t teach,” Gonzalez said. “These kids will not be given enough time to learn English, never mind understand the content of the test questions.”

Some students dread the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards test. Other are angered by it.

“I’m afraid that I may just have to give up, get out of school and try to get some kind of job,” said Antonio Carpio, 14, a freshman at Arcadia High who emigrated from Mexico.

Valmy Herrera, 15, from Venezuela, would like to take the test in Spanish then in English. “I get good grades, and I want to succeed like everyone else. Why should I have to stay back or have to drop out just because I don’t know English fluently?” she asked — in both languages.



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