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SACRAMENTO, July 14 -- It's been two weeks since the results of California's statewide
achievement test were released. But the answer to a closely watched question--what those
scores say about the effects of Proposition 227, the ballot initiative that curtailed bilingual
education in the state's classrooms--remains unclear. Because of a computer error, in
which scores for students who are no longer considered limited-English-proficient were
included with the scores of those who are still in that category, the data were returned to the
test publisher, Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement. The company is expected to
provide corrected files to the state this week. The mistake did not affect the overall results,
which state schools Superintendent Delaine Eastin said "are moving in the right direction-
upward bound." But, she said, the error "may have resulted in overstating the achievement
of our LEP students." (Education Week)
SANTA ANA, Calif. July 7 -- California students made modest gains in every subject and
nearly every grade in a test of basic skills this spring, according to results reported last
week. But what seemed like a big victory for opponents of bilingual education evaporated
when a reporting error was found to have inflated the scores of non-English-speaking
students. The error, discovered the day before the scores were to be posted on the Internet,
made it look as if students with limited English had made sharp gains in the first school year
since the state's voters banned bilingual education. But last Wednesday, embarrassed
officials from the state and the test's publisher, Harcourt Educational Measurement,
announced that they had mistakenly pooled scores for students not fluent in English with
those for students whose English had been limited but now was fluent. (New York Times)
SACRAMENTO, July 1 -- News of Proposition 227's success might have been greatly
exaggerated. The 1998 initiative that sought to end bilingual education in public schools may
yet turn out to be a boon to immigrant children. But the first objective signs of the
initiative's early promise were unclear at best. The state Department of Education announced
Wednesday that the test's publisher mistakenly combined the scores of limited-English
children with those of students who had become fluent. That means the scores for limited
English kids -- the targets of Prop. 227 -- were inflated when reported as a group.
(Orange County Register)
