Parents lie about kids' language skills to get them a better education

Nieves Garcia was labeled an “English learner” in school after moving to the United States from Mexico at age 6. Now an adult, she speaks English, but her husband doesn’t. When she enrolled their daughter in kindergarten, she told the school the family used only English at home to avoid having her daughter labeled as she was.

“I just said we spoke English, English, English, and English,” Garcia said.

Federal law requires schools to provide special accommodation to students learning English, but some parents are lying on school forms so their children avoid being educated differently than their peers. Parents are concerned if they even acknowledged other languages spoken at home, their kids will undergo extra testing or miss educational opportunities.

Almost a quarter of California students are classified as English learners. According to a 2010 research report by Laurie Olsen, director of the Sobrato Early Academic Literacy Initiative, the majority of the secondary school English learners in California are “Long Term English Learners” (LTEL): students who have been in U.S. schools for more than six years, are struggling with academics, and are “no longer progressing towards English proficiency.”

“Most LTELs want to go to college, and are unaware that their academic program is not preparing them for that goal,” the report concludes.

Many states decide who qualifies as an English learner by first having parents fill out a home language survey that includes questions like: “Is a language other than English spoken in your home?” and “Does your child communicate in a language other than English?” If the answer to either question is yes, children usually are referred for language proficiency testing.

More than 200,000 of California’s incoming kindergarteners took the California English Language Development Test in 2012. Only 9 percent tested proficient in English.

In a 2011 study published by the Center for Latino Policy Research at UC Berkeley, Lisa García Bedolla and Rosaisela Rodriguez said the content and length of the test (about two hours), the problems with assessing young students through standardized tests, and test administrators unfamiliar with language testing or young children could contribute to the small number of students who pass.

“As can be imagined, taking such a long test administered by a stranger is challenging for 4- and 5-year-olds about to enter kindergarten,” Bedolla and Rodriguez write.

They also say the “wide net” cast by the system “in some ways renders the classification itself meaningless” due to the wide variety of students who end up labeled with English learner status.

California plans to switch to a new assessment in the 2016-17 school year, according to Education Week.

In the past, state standards for English language learners varied, but following widespread implementation of the Common Core State Standards, some groups are pushing for a unified definition of English language learners. The federal government gave grants to two organizations to develop common English language assessments.

The Council of Chief State School Officers calls revoking the English learner status a “high-stakes decision.” Not receiving extra instruction when it is needed can cause “risk of academic failure,” but unnecessarily prolonged status as an English learner “can limit educational opportunities, lower teacher expectations, and demoralize students.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.