The Universal move to measure language

[YAUTIAPR]

For many years teachers have been concerned with the issue of language dominance and language proficiency among their Spanish speaking students. This is no coincidence, it is planned and executed in the educational think tanks and funded by Washington DC. There is a universal move to emphasize language assessment for diagnostic purposes leading to effective educational prescription;(the paradigm here is "The More Effective Schools Movement" and it falls within the "equilibrium" model of pedagogy).

What this means is explained by the definition of evolutionary equilibrium. It can be applied to the US school system. Change in education is characterized by long periods of stability in the characteristics of the public schools which functions as an organism (or an institution, in this case the public schools K-8th grade) and short periods of rapid change during which new forms appear (the Hispanic National Origin LEP minorities,) these are considered especial populations and come from a "protected class" of students; from small subpopulations of the ancestral form in restricted parts of its geographic range; Mexicans from Chicago, then South to Texas and West to California; Puerto Ricans and Central Americans in the North East and Cubans in Florida and the Southeast. It is also based on a theory or model of evolution emphasizing this slow transition in language proficiency testing— compare GRADUALISM (as in a gradual assimilation towards English by allowing the transitional or English as a Second language model of bilingual education in the USA).

The Responsibility of Training The Teachers

In discussing staff developemnt for language assessment we do not want to separate assessors from teachers, although in many school districts in the USA these two things are separate. We believe the resposibility of language teaching and language assessment should be stressed in the universities that prepare professionals for the field of bilingual and multicultural or cross-cultural education.
There is a crying need for professionals who can deal with the affective and cognitive needs of students who are Hispanics in the USA within their linguistic and cultural contexts if the model is to be a success.

There are Federal and state policies and laws that encourage the development of competency criteria for professionals in bilingual education but very few school districts bother to implement the laws or take advantage of the funding. And when they get the funds, they divert these funds, they never get to the classroom, much less the child or training for the parent.

State licensing boards can establish and enforce high standards for professional certification, and many of them do, (see California and New York, as examples) but few districts have many certified professional staff that have the competency in language and much less in culture to serve the Hispanic population of the USA.

But while the USA claims to be moving as a nation to bring professional skills to the necessary levels to meet the needs of national origin Hispanic Minorities, (by establishing national norms and national standards),local school boards and district-level administrators (still very centralized) must take the initiative to ensure that the assessment and instructional programs they implement are not doomed to failure by ignoring the need for adequately prepared staff. Active recruitment of competent staff is clearly, no, I would say, desperately needed. So, also are opportunities for staff development through inservice training for teachers that have Hispanic students in their classrooms.

In an equilibrium paradigm we must believe that school professionals wish to deal fairly with all their students: (as Yautia, Moi, tends to think, we gotta give them the benefit of the doubt), local school boards and administrators can make certain that their educational staff develop the skills necessary to do so.

Professional staff development at the local level will naturally depend largely on inservice training programs. This is not all bad; Much research has shown that inservice training of teachers who are daily encountering the curricular and non-curricular problems of Hispanic Studens is more effective and is perceived as more relevant than formal course work at undergraduate or graduate levels. Presumably, the possibility of increased rapport with actual students reinforces the professionals' appreciation of inservie training and improves its effectiveness. Besides the fact that there are not many great professors in US Universities who understand the issues of Hispanic National Origin Minorities in the USA. In any event, local boards, administrators and professionals themselves need not view inservice programs as "repair or "make do" methods. Thoughfully planned and positively approached, they can provide a real avenue for professional growth. The problem is typical of the equilibirum paradigm in education, that "de la teoria al hecho si que hay un gran trecho!"

La YautiaPR