Update 7 – Implicit Bias in ELL Quantitative Testing Methods

There are a variety of problems with the testing of ELL students, problems that predate but are often compounded by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001). Here is a brief summary of some of the most salient issues. (For a history of federal policy and implications of NCLB for ELL students, see Wright, 2005). There are various possible solutions to these problems, some of which require federal, perhaps legislative, action; but some can be acted on at the state or local levels. I suggest possible solutions after each problem; the next sections of this paper focus in more detail on solutions. A. Unequal resources available to ELL students These students are disproportionately low-income and more likely to attend lower-resourced schools. SES remains strongest predictor of test scores, overall. ELL students must become proficient in English and learn in the subject areas. It is unlikely students who are not proficient in English can progress in content areas taught primarily in English as rapidly as do native English speakers. Also, there is a chronic lack of bilingual educators. NCLB's "highly qualified teacher" provisions may make it harder for schools to use bilingual teachers (if they must also be content-area certified); in addition, requirements for para-professionals appear to be driving bilingual paras out (though I have not seen hard data on this). In general, ELL students are likely to have far less opportunity to learn the content expected by state standards defining "proficient.”

Schools with larger numbers or percentages of ELL students, which are often more ethnically diverse and more low-income, typically start behind in the "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) 3 race (Neill and Guisbond, 2004). They have to catch up and make the same progress as others. This is, in general, unlikely. The more groups that are counted in the AYP process, the less likely the school is to make AYP – the diversity penalty. Many ELLs are also racial-ethnic minority and low-income, some have disabilities, meaning they may count in two or more groups' AYP results. ELLs typically vie with students with disabilities for the lowest scores, further contributing toward multiple chances for a school to not make AYP. Crawford (2004) points out that ELLs themselves are a "highly diverse population in terms of socioeconomic status, linguistic and cultural background, level of English proficiency, amount of prior education, and instructional program experience. That is, the students themselves start out from very diverse places, and appropriate education must respond to that diversity.

The ELL population in our schools is probably one of the most debated groups of people our most recent educational history. No Child Left Behind got the ball rolling as far as recognizing the need to test the vast and diverse ELL population, but never clearly created a path for testing standardization. Under ESSA, Identifying and implementing interventions for schools with underperforming high-needs populations such as English language learners, special education students and racial minorities moved to more local control and more accountability is in place as a result. The biggest issue with ELL testing is figuring out how to create a quality standardized test that is reliable, but eliminates subjectivity from the tester or the testing provider.

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Greenwald, A. G.; Poehlman, T. A.; Uhlmann, E.; Banaji, M. R. “Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 17–41, 2009.

Maison, Dominika; Greenwald, Anthony G.; Bruin, Ralph H. “Predictive Validity of the Implicit Association Test in Studies of Brands, Consumer Attitudes and Behavior.” Journal of Consumer Psychology.

https://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/NCLB_assessing_bilingual_students_0.pdf

https://classroom.synonym.com/positive-negative-effects-nclb-esl-students-14960.html