MCAS presents high hurdle for limited-English students

After the bell rang and the students in her English-as-a-second-language class scrambled out the door, Millie Przybylowski leafed through last year’s 10th-grade MCAS English language arts exam, shaking her head.

She pointed to an excerpt from Rachel Carson’s “The Sea Around Us.” “Autumn comes to the sea with a fresh blaze of phosphorescence . . .,” the selection begins.

Przybylowski, an ESL teacher at Central High School in Springfield, tapped her index finger on the first word. “Sometimes they know ‘fall.’ They may not know ‘autumn,'” she said. “Maybe you start reading something and you don’t understand the first word.”

Limited-English-proficient students who get tripped up early on must make do. Under the state’s so-called competency determination, all students must pass the sophomore-level Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests to receive a diploma.

“It seems so unfair,” Przybylowski said. “This is supposed to be the land of opportunity.”

Advocates of the graduation mandate say that in the past, students in specialized programs like bilingual education were often given short shrift. Requiring all students to pass the test forces schools to offer the same level of resources to everyone, they argue.

James A. Peyser, chairman of the state Board of Education, which sets policies for K-12 public schools, backs the rule. “For many, I’m sure it’s arduous. But it’s fair,” he said. “A student who gets a high school diploma ought to know, and employers ought to know, that that student is literate in English.”

In Massachusetts, students with limited English skills may be enrolled in regular classes while taking an ESL course. Or they may be in a transitional bilingual education program, where academic instruction in their native language decreases as they gain fluency. State law mandates bilingual education in districts where at least 20 students speak the same language.

The MCAS tests were established with the 1993 Education Reform Act. The diploma mandate begins with this year’s sophomores, although they will have four more shots at the test if they fail the first time. Students in grades 3 though 8 also take MCAS tests this year.

Generally, limited-English-proficient students are not required to take the tests if they have been in a U.S. school for less than three years. But if they are literate in Spanish, they take translated MCAS tests even if they have not surpassed the three-year mark.

When it comes to the high-stakes sophomore-level test, students with limited English proficiency, like their peers, must pass both the English language arts and the math exams.

But Spanish-speaking 10th graders still eligible to take the translated MCAS exams can take the math test in their native language and fulfill half the graduation mandate, according to the state Department of Education. However, they must eventually pass the regular English language arts exam.

Statewide last year, there were 2,067 sophomores classified as having limited English proficiency, according to the education department. Of this group, 22 percent took the English MCAS test and 41 percent took the math. Seventy-five percent failed in English and 77 percent failed in math.

Amherst resident Rosalie Pedalino Porter, a member of the Board of Education’s bilingual education advisory council, said the passing level of the MCAS exam – just one point above failing – probably equates to about a C-minus.

“You have to think, if a student can’t do ‘C’ or ‘D’ level work on a reading, writing or math test, how could they pass all the other courses for high school graduation?” she said.

An educational consultant for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development, Porter acknowledged that the task is more difficult for students learning English at the high school level. Older students require much more help – perhaps even an extra year of schooling, she said.

But the goal is feasible, she said. “We’re always talking about high expectations for these kids, and they will meet them with our help,” said Porter, who began her career in this field as a bilingual education teacher in Springfield in the late 1970s.

As more states develop high school exit tests, seeing this type of policy is not unusual, said Mark C. Duffy, a consultant for the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, based at the University of Pennsylvania.

But Roger L. Rice, executive director of the Somerville-based Multicultural Education, Training and Advocacy Inc., said Massachusetts may eventually face lawsuits over it.

Students should be expected to learn English, and schools should be expected to do a good job of teaching the language, he said. “What’s not fair is to presume a kid who’s been here one year . . . is in the same position as a kid who was born of English-speaking parents who has lived in Massachusetts her whole life,” he said.

The exam was designed as a rigorous test to gauge critical thinking skills. Some educators say the hurdles can be virtually insurmountable for students who can’t grasp subtle nuances in a poem, or may lack the vocabulary to handle a math problem that talks about “coplanar, noncollinear points.”

Jazmin Negron, a sophomore enrolled in an ESL class at Holyoke High School, has been in the school system five years and can converse easily enough in English.

But academic questions still stump her, she said. She had difficulty understanding the question on the one-day MCAS essay test last month. “I tried to write something,” she said. “I tried my best.”

Mary Anne O’Connor, Negron’s ESL teacher, said that while students try in class, many simply do not get the English practice they need. The Holyoke school district, with a 26-percent bilingual education enrollment, has a 70-percent Hispanic population.

“Most of them don’t use (English) at home,” O’Connor said. “They don’t use it on the street with their friends. They only use it in school.”

In Springfield, Przybylowski has students work through old MCAS English exams. They read the poems and book excerpts, answer multiple-choice questions and work on essay writing.

Sophomore Valeed Soundare, who came to the United States from Thailand as an eighth-grader, is determined to pass the tests being given this week and next.

But he said he often has to read a question over and over to get past his confusion. “Writing is kind of hard – sometimes spelling, (if it’s) a deep word,” he said.

A classmate of Soundare’s, Juan M. Barrera, who moved to Springfield two years ago, jumped in and said, “Maybe you know the material, but how . . .,” he started, trailing off and turning to his instructor.

“C?mo se dice?” he said to Przybylowski, before turning back. “. . . how to get everything you have in your mind on a piece of paper?”

Soundare gave a slight smile and nodded in agreement. “S?,” he said to his Puerto Rican classmate.



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