Shownotes
Teacher, are you navigating the challenges of ACCESS testing and misclassification issues with your ELLs?
Join host Beth Vaucher in this episode of Equipping ELLs as she engages in a compelling conversation with Mariel Norris, a seasoned ESL educator. Mariel shares her educational journey and discusses her impactful article, "How We Can Help Daniela," published in the Washington Monthly. Together, they unravel the challenges posed by ACCESS testing, shedding light on misclassification issues and the emotional toll it takes on our students. The episode delves into advocacy efforts in which teachers can engage, emphasizing the need for change in ESL education and testing criteria. If you're passionate about empowering multilingual learners and advocating for positive change in education, this episode provides valuable insights and inspiration!
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Transcripts
Hey, Mariel, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have
you here today.
I'm so excited to be here.
Why don't we dive in and you share a little bit about your
educational background, your experience, what you're currently
doing today, because we have a lot to get into after that.
Sure. Yeah. So I got my bachelor's from Bard college, where I
majored in written arts in latin american and iberian studies, and
I also have a master's in education from Fitchburg State
University and also Massachusetts licensure in kindergarten
through 6th grade ESL. And I have a decade of teaching experience.
I taught in Spain right after college at two elementary schools,
and that's how I got interested in teaching ESL. And I've taught
all grade levels from kindergarten through adult, and I'm
currently teaching elementary school, which is sort of where I
found my niche and want to stay.
Amazing. Yeah. It usually takes one cultural experience abroad to
kind of make it, like, just your eyes open to this whole world and
the excitement that comes. So that's
awesome.
Iberian studies. I would love to go deeper
that,
but we don't time for that right now. But another time. That is
really cool. Awesome. Well, I came across your name from an
article as I was doing some research. This is going to be January
when this is going to be released, which in most states, well, at
least I think, 46 of them that are widow states. It is access
testing time, and the window usually runs from January to March.
So as I've been preparing different podcast episodes, I just
wanted to do a deeper dive into are some articles out there. What
are people's experience with access? I know inside my membership,
equipping know, just sharing a lot of the frustrations of our
teachers and what they're going through. And so I came across your
article that was published in the Washington Monthly titled how we
can help Daniela. And I was instantly intrigued. And I read your
article and it truly brought me to tears because in my mind came
so many of my own students who were like Daniela, and so many
stories from the teachers that are inside our membership who are
just having this frustration of these students who've really been
in the system for a long time. And this one test is really keeping
them from growing and from just thriving and being incredible
superheroes that are bilingual. It's really kind of creating this
really negative approach to them in their minds and in the
teachers minds, because they know they can succeed, they know they
can pass this test, but this test is keeping them in that system.
So unfortunately, there's not a lot of articles like yours that I
was coming across where it was just a real honest and really well
written article about your experience and then the research that
you've done around. Specifically, we did access testing. So let's
start there. Let's just start with kind of an overview of what
this testing is, what this looks like, because I know there are
some people who might be in states that don't do we to testing.
I'm sure it's similar to whatever standardized language test that
the school does administer, but there's also, we have
international listeners, so they might not have any idea about
what standardized testing looks like. So why don't you just start
there with a little bit of your research and findings into we to
access testing?
Yeah, sure. But first of all, I'm really glad the article
resonated with you, and I was hoping that a lot of teachers would
see it and feel empowered to start thinking about ways there could
be changes. And I had a similar experience with you that once it
was published in the summer, I did receive a lot of messages from
teachers like, I had the exact same experience. Danielle is just
like my students. Anyway, so to explain a little bit about access
and WiDA. So WiDA is the company that puts out access. And access
is an annual test for kindergarten through twelveth grader and
public schools throughout the US and the states and territories.
Um, it's been around for about 20 years, but it's gained momentum
more and more. At first it was only several states, and due to
legislation like no Child Left behind, and more recently, ESSa.
ESSA schools are relying on it, and it's in 41 states and
territories. The rest use other tests, but all states need to use
some sort of standardized test, as per ESSA, the legislation. So
WIDA also, in addition to putting out access every year, it also
has resources for teachers, basically delineating levels that
students are at between one and six, with one being a total
beginner and six on par with their general education peers. And
along with those levels, there's a list of what they call can do
descriptors that state what students should be able to do at each
level, which is helpful information, but sometimes it's not
accurate in terms of students might test all over the ballpark.
And so I've had students who will get a four one year, but then a
two the next year, and it's like, okay, where are they? So the way
it works is students whose families speak another language at home
are screened when they enter us schooling, regardless of what year
it is, whether anywhere between kindergarten and twelveth grade.
And so if they're in one of those 41 states that use WIDA, then
they would use the WIDA screener to determine whether or not they
should be receiving ELl services. And then every winter, usually
January, they would take the access test, and then that would
determine whether they've made progress and whether they're ready
to exit the ELl program in the following school year. So, yeah,
this process does vary a little bit state to state. States do have
discretion, but ESA does strongly encourage states to rely on a
standardized test score. And basically, as the one criterion of
whether students are able to be reclassified, other data from
teachers and administrators is not taken into account, generally
speaking. So that's the general background on access and WIDA.
That was awesome. Super helpful explanation of that. And I think,
you know what, there's so many frustrational points with this, but
to me, it just is so shocking that in our education system, one
test to be, there are some, there is some wiggle room here, but
most. The ESA criteria, the legislator is saying that you need to
have one test that helps you reclassify students. And then looking
at the testing as a whole, it's like they entered the school in
August, even if it's someone who's been there. But they had two
months off school. Now they're in school, and we all know back to
school. It takes a long time to get groups set up and to get the
schedule going. So that's really now we're moving into probably
end of September, October. By the time you actually have your
groups, you have things set up. You know how to support your
students. Then we have winter break. I know some of our members
inside of clubbing L's. They were starting to test in December
now. So it's like, so you maybe have two good months of working
with those students, and now we're already testing them to see if
they're ready to exit the just, it makes no sense to me of the
timing of things. I know New York goes a lot later. They wait, I
think, until May, which makes much more sense to me. So it's like
that alone is we're having this one criteria right in the middle
of the year. And tell me about your experience as a teacher,
because I know this is another huge frustrational piece for our
teachers of multilingual learners where all of a sudden maybe
you're starting to build that momentum. You have your schedule
finally set, you're working with your groups, you're pushing in,
you're pulling out. However your model is comes winter break, and
now you're being pulled out for a substantial amount of time to
run these tests. Give us a little insight into what that whole
beast looks like of having to do the test and all of that.
Yeah. So it's hugely time consuming and it's a logistical
nightmare. The administrator's manual of all the things you have
to keep track of is 90 pages long. So that gives you some idea.
The last time that we administrated it, it took a full month, the
whole month of January, even though we were giving it to multiple
groups of students each day. But there's all these rules, like
students have to do listening and reading those domains before
they can do speaking and writing. And then, so, of course, if
students are absent, which they often are, in January, everyone
is
sick, then they can't keep testing with their peers. And so you
have to test them individually. And of course, there are specific
clusters and tiers that can test together and can't test together.
So it ends up meaning that they lose a lot of time, both with ell
teachers because that's all we're doing and also in their other
classes. And we have to constantly email the general education
teachers to apologize and let them know yet again they're going to
miss class and then come up with a good testing location. So that
means maybe depending on the school, the gym is just being taken
over for that time. So it's really hard on everyone from, from us
as Yol teachers to all the other teachers. And of course, to the
students. And it's not just that it's costly in terms of time, but
it's not cheap in terms of money either. Since I live in
Massachusetts, I just looked into what it costs in Massachusetts.
But in:101,000 students be tested. So that gives you some idea of the
toll that this test takes.
Yeah. And then not even counting the teacher time that you're now
removed from your regular lessons and supporting those students.
So really, for that whole month, your students are only being
supported by the homeroom teacher.
Yeah. Right. So they lose out on a lot of supports, and they're
behind on their classes because they're missing their other
classes as well.
It is a complicated, acrobatic work there that you're trying to do
to make that all work. And I know getting the students if they're
absent and following up with that, I mean, that is a lot on you.
So if there's homeroom teachers listening, be very gracious and
loving to your ESL teachers during testing months
of
January and February. And then really a lot of them move into
state testing come March. So if we really look at what our
education system is doing to our english language learners, it's a
tragedy. We're really not giving them the support they need, and
nobody shows their best work by a standardized test. So that
brings us into your article about Daniela. And Daniella is a
pseudonym for one of your students, but it really is a pseudonym
for so many students that we are seeing trapped in the system. So
why don't you just give us a quick overview? And for those who are
listening, we will post a link to the article in the show notes.
So please, I encourage you, go read the entire article because
it's so good. But just give us a brief overview of who this
student is and what her situation looked like.
Okay? Yeah. So Danielle is a pseudonym. When I was teaching her,
she was in 7th grade. She had moved to Boston from El Salvador
when she was in kindergarten. And you wouldn't be able to know
that she was an ell if you just heard her talking to her friends.
Because she's been in the US long enough. She doesn't have an
accent, she talks fluently, and her scores varied widely on
access. So some years it was very low, some years very high, or
not very high, but approaching almost. Yeah. So she's an example
of a student who maybe doesn't have a perfect command of all the
domains of English, like speaking. Well, she's good with speaking
and listening, but less so with reading and writing, and that's
due to a communication disability, so it's not. Due to her needing
more ell time. And she also does see a learning specialist for the
communication disability. But she needs to split her time between
the learning specialist and ell services. And that means that cuts
back on other time that she could spend with her peers in
electives or in the general education classroom. And it's a way of
making students like her feel like outsiders, even though they've
already been in the country for so long, but they're still being
told, like, you're deficient in English, you need to stay in this.
And just because a student doesn't have a perfect command of all
of the domains of English and all the intricacies of English
doesn't necessarily mean that ell is what they need. And access
fails to take into account these learning differences. So students
like her are misclassified, often due to access.
Yeah. And that's where anybody who's worked with Els for long
enough has probably had that issue arise. I know I was in many
meetings, RTI meetings and things like that, where it was always
that, is this a language? Is there something else going on here?
Is this a learning disability? I mean, there's so many different
facets that we have to take into play when we look at a student
and the support they need. And more often than not, though, I
mean, as a teacher, you kind of just have in your gut, like, I'm
giving them all the language support they need, and they're still
really struggling. And I don't think it's a language issue, but a
lot of times it's met with it's a language issue. And so they
continue on getting the support that they're really growing, and
they're doing great, especially these students who've been in the
country for multiple years. Their English is fluent. They speak
the same as their peers. And so then to find out that actually,
there is another underlying issue, but now we're splitting our
time. And now, because you can't pass this test, this one test,
and we all know one day you could have a bad day that impacts
those scores of your test, because, like
you're
saying last year, your students might have been close to passing,
and, all right, we're almost there on maybe let's just boost up
that speaking. Let's practice the speaking. That's what's keeping
them from doing it. And then the following year, their scores
could be completely different. And so it's very hard as a teacher
to really know how to support those students when they're over the
place. And the test seems to be getting harder year after year
without really giving the teachers the support they need to boost
those students. And so I know a lot of teachers listening are
picturing those students that Daniela, that they have that has
that additional struggle of some sort. Maybe it's identified,
maybe it's not. But now they're being split in multiple different
ways. Or just those students who have been in the country for a
long time. They've been in this program since kindergarten, first
grade. They're now in 7th, 8th grade. And they're just tired of
it. They know. That they're not going to pass that test. I know
many students who I've talked to that just have that attitude of,
and you can't blame them. I mean, if they take that test year
after year and know, like, I'm not going to be able to pass it,
what are we sending? What message are we sending to our students?
So I would love for you to share a little bit more about that
misclassification. That happens a lot. I know that the, that's a
question that a lot of our teachers face. Is this something that
could be just a learning disability? Is this language? Can you
elaborate on that at all of how you have seen that process work
where they've been able to identify or any advice for our
listeners of how can they really advocate for those students to
help get the further support they need and maybe lessen the ELl
support if that is something that they're seeing is working well
and they don't need as much Ell support.
Yeah, I think generally a red flag to look out for is if it's been
maybe over four or five years and the student also does have a
learning disability or the teacher suspects that something else
could be interfering so they're able to do testing and in fact,
they do have a learning disability and it's been four or five
years and they haven't passed access. Maybe it's time to move on
and they don't need Ell services anymore. I know in some districts
it's okay, even if they haven't passed access, to not get all
those ELl services. But it depends. Some schools really hold
tightly to that access score and require the services every year.
So teachers should definitely be on the lookout for that and
advocate for those students to be able to move on if they think
they're ready. The more that teachers stand up and advocate for
things like this, the more there's going to be like a question
mark about this test and its validity. Teachers need to bring this
forth and not just endlessly be okay with, okay, the student again
and again is going to have to take this test because it's
demoralizing for students and we don't want them to be caught in
this stigmatizing situation and also miss out on classes that they
could benefit from. More student needing to be in ESL.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I loved coming across your
article, and I really hope that more and more people will bring up
this topic and really ask Wida and ask the states and ask the
districts and the know, what can we do to help our students really
grow, become bilingual, help them soar and not keep them in this
place where they feel like what? All that matters is the test
score.
Yeah.
And that's a lot of the sentiment of many of our students,
especially as they get older. Now, there was a really interesting
quote that you put in your article from somebody from Education
Week article that you were quoting from that, and it said, the
expectation for english language learners to actually let me read
again. Okay, so you put in a quote from an education Week article
that said, the expectations for english language learners are
actually more arduous than what many monolingual students can
actually produce. Tons of monolingual students would be classified
as Ells overnight if access were administered to all. And I've
seen this myself. I've seen this in many groups. And each year I
was reading some articles from Wida themselves, and they were just
saying, oh, we're raising the rigor. The test is getting harder.
And you think, would a monolingual student really be able to
complete this successfully? I don't think they could. I think many
of them, I didn't even know as a first language english speaker
what all these different verb tenses were subjunctive. I didn't
even, we have that in English until I went and learned Spanish and
I realized, oh, we have this in English. But there's so many
things that the control of the language and the command of the
language, many native speakers don't have control over that. They
don't have the writing skills that are expected of these second
language students to pass this test. And so how do we raise the
flags on this? How do we ask the validity of this test? Is, are we
testing monolingual students to use as a comparison to see how are
they doing on this test? Or is raising the rigor really a way to
keep more people testing so there's more money made? I don't know.
I'm just asking questions. But what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, you bring up so many great points, and I love the idea of,
I'm not sure if Wida does do a control with monolingual speakers,
but that would be a great idea to really see. Is this reasonable?
Are these expectations reasonable for ELls, especially because
these tests access is testing students across all the grade level
subjects.
So
they're being tested in English of science, English of math,
English of social studies, and meanwhile, they're also learning
all the very basics of English language itself, from decoding to
the correct word order and sentences and the way emphasis changes
in meaning and colloquial phrases and all of that. And they're
still supposed to be at grade level, accessing English across
grade level. So some examples of things that they might need to do
on the test would be like in fourth grade, maybe writing a compare
and contrast. Essay or in second grade describing the steps in a
science experiment. And those are things that are very important,
but it's important to be aware of. Could their peers also do that?
Because otherwise it's really unfair. And their peers never
started out in El to begin with, so they don't have this hurdle
that they have to get past. So no one's seeing like, oh, do they
know this too? I mean, they're tested in other ways, but ell
students are also tested in those ways, too. So ells have an
additional hurdle that they need to get past.
That was a great explanation just how much we're putting on these
students. I mean, it's a lot. And I don't think that the benefit
is really there for them to feel like they're not making it. I'm
only important if I know English. I mean, that's the paradigm
shift we need to really focus on is how do we create schools and
communities that are assets based approach that we are really
creating and cultivating environments where they feel so welcomed
and accepted and excited and they're picking up English as they
continue to keep their native language, because that's the future.
We want bilingual, trilingual students to be part of our country,
our world, and that's what we should be aiming for. I cannot think
of any other country where you would go and be plopped in and then
have so many factors on how well you do and having so many tests.
Even if you comer and you enter before testing begins, you have to
test correct. I think there's like a certain cut off date, but
it's pretty close to when testing begins. So it's like, imagine
coming to a
new country and all of a sudden you have to sit down and take
this. It's crazy.
It is crazy. And I guess that's where I want to dive deeper on
this topic because I feel like there's a disconnect of what Wida
says is Best Practices for English language learners, and then
what this test does them seems to be the complete opposite of what
we know is best practice. So it's something that I can't seem to
let go. And I think that's the purpose. I think we as educators of
multilingual learners need to keep standing up and saying, this is
not right. And I love that. Writing an article, doing a podcast,
whatever it looks like, for those who are listening, let's
advocate for these students. So let's end on that. What do you
think? What can we do to keep advocating for our students,
especially those stuck in the system like Daniela. Those who've
been program for years and just one test. Is keeping them from
really moving on and finding a new way to approach education and
enjoy it and see them soar in different ways. What would you say?
Yeah, I think you touched well on writing an article, talking on a
podcast like this. Those are both extremely important, just in
general getting your voice out there, because the more people who
share their experiences, the more people will understand that this
isn't okay. And the people creating access aren't with ells on a
daily basis, seeing how it actually plays out. So it's really
important for everyone to speak up about this, whether it's to
administrators who can then relay the message on whether it's
getting directly in touch with the Department of Education,
whatever state you're in. Like I emailed my article to various
even though I live in Massachusetts, I emailed it to a bunch of
different state departments. And also another avenue that you can
take not only is to get in touch with the state department, to
question the rigidity around the criteria, but also to get in
touch with the makers of the test. So when I was writing my
article, I talked to the CEO, Tim Bowles, and he himself has put
out literature saying that this test should only be one of many
criteria to determine whether students should be ells. He didn't
intend for the test to be used this way, and he's very friendly
and approachable and loves talking about all things Wida and
access related. And his email and phone number are posted online
so you can easily find them. You could share with him improvements
that you think could be made to the test and the more people he
hears from. If we are relying on this test, at least it should be
a strong test. So there's two avenues. One is like pushing for the
test to not be the only criterion in determining placement. The
other is also improving the test itself. And in my article, I
listed tons of ways I could see the test being improved to make it
much more engaging, because obviously people do their best when
they're engaged. No one does well when a test is boring, and the
test is incredibly boring.
Very
boring. So I listed a bunch of improvements, but that is not like
a comprehensive list because those are just my opinions. And I'm
sure tons of other teachers have tons of other ways that it could
also be improved. So the more we let Wida know the ways that it's
damaging and the ways it could be improved, the better, I think.
Yeah,
absolutely. And I love that. You reached out to him and that he
responded. I mean, that shows, that's why I don't think that it's
their evil and want to destroy the kids. I think they really are
passionate for multilingual learners. But I think with the
pressures of having some sort of one size fits all approach to our
El students when we know that it's not a one size fits all, that's
where we really, like you said, just advocating for even just
having that in the school that you're working in, if you can have
some teacher observations or another form of checking in and
saying, okay, is this student ready to go? Even if they're not
passing the access testing and knowing your state department and
what their standards are, how you go about that, that you can get
that because it was saying that with Essa, even that there is some
room where you can maybe apply for the ability to have your say
and your teacher approach or maybe using multiple different ways
to assess the student, not just having the access to test be the
only deciding factor. So those are some great options. And I think
exactly what you're saying. The more that we can spread the word,
get the word out, go right to Wida, go right to your state
department and really just continue to be those advocates that our
students really, we can see change in the hopefully. Well, Ariel
Mariel, let me say that again. Well, Mariel, thank you so much for
being on the show today. This just honestly makes me even more
inspired to keep raising those flags, keep finding more ways that
we can make a small impact. But we don't know how big that impact
can be by just know small things like this. So thank you so much
for your time. Thank you for the article that you wrote. Like I
said, we will post that in the show notes so that you all can read
it. And please, if you're listening and this was helpful, share
her article share this podcast let's just get these conversations
happening around. How can we make testing something better for
both the students and the teachers? Because the way that it's
burning teachers out is not okay either. All right, thanks so much
for being here, and hopefully we'll talk again soon.
Thank you so much, Beth, it was wonderful talking to you, and
thank you for doing your part and spreading the word.
Absolutely. Once the passion begins, it's hard to stop it, right?