Education Policy: Research: Historical Overview: Bush, GHW:
Federal Education Policy and the States, 1945-2009
The George H.W. Bush Years: Common Standards and English Language Learners
The meaning of common standards and assessments was also challenging for English language learners. The focus on improving instructional programs coincided with a rather sudden withdrawal of financial support from bilingual programs, the "outcomes" of which had become a subject of widespread debate. As early as 1988, as part of the Hawkins-Stafford amendments, Augustus Hawkins (the African-American chair of the House Education and Labor Committee) agreed, under pressure from the Reagan administration, to increase the proportion of "alternative" programs (i.e., immersion or English-Only programs) permissible under the law from 4 percent to 25 percent of the total. He also agreed to limit the time a student could remain in a bilingual program to three years (except in extraordinary cases, when the limit was extended to five years). So, even while the Hawkins-Stafford amendments directed more money to low-achieving schools, non-English-speaking students in those schools were often forced into English-Only classes.
Over the next decade, as the standards movement gained momentum
and standardized tests came to dominate the assessment of schools,
non-English-speaking pupils faced increasing pressure to show high
scores on English exams. The National
Academy of Education warned that a heavy reliance on standardized
test scores might skew the work of teaching, but, by the late 1980s,
political pressure to show accountability through test scores was
becoming inescapable. Despite the Academy's caution "a) that
future assessments, limited in the competencies they measure, might
come 'to exercise an influence on our schools that exceeds their
scope and true merit,' and b) that 'simple comparisons are ripe
for abuse and are unlikely to inform meaningful school improvement
efforts'," public demand for "results" was overwhelming.
The complexities of testing policies for disabled, limited-English-speaking,
and other students with special circumstances did not weaken this
demand.
