From the Sioux City Journal:
Lori Phanachone is a member of the National Honor Society, has a 3.9 grade point average and ranks seventh in the senior class of about 119 at Storm Lake High School.
But school officials have told her she is considered to be illiterate based on her refusal to satisfactorily complete the English Language Development Assessment, a test she says is demeaning and racist.
On Wednesday, Phanachone finished serving three days of in-school suspension for what school administrators say is insubordination. She faces another three days for continuing her silent protest with a second refusal to take the test. According to a written statement presented to her Wednesday, Phanachone said, she could be suspended again and then expelled for a fourth refusal.
"Mr. Ruleaux (assistant principal Beau Ruleaux) told me I was 'no Rosa Parks' -- that I should give up because I would not succeed in my protest," Phanachone said.
...
The school district's curriculum coordinator, Lori Porsche, said taking the test is mandatory because Phanachone indicated on her school registration that English was not the first language spoken in her home. Her parents are Laotian and still speak little English.
Phanachone, who was born in California and lived in upstate New York before moving to Storm Lake with her family in 2006, said she has never been enrolled in any English Language Learning or English as a Second Language program.
"Someone told me I should have put English as my first language when I registered for school," Phanachone said. "But I refused. I will not deny who I am. And I will not disrespect my culture or my mother."
Here's the contact info for the high school if you feel moved to protest.
Oh I SO love institutional stupidity. I wonder if anyone is asking about educators there and what the hell they're doing if they can't tell if a student is literate or not with such an academic record.
I don't know if the test itself is demeaning or racist, but the no exceptions policy certainly looks that way. I would not however, rule out a certain bureaucratic stupidity that seems endemic in schools. I wish I could, but these cases are too numerous and varied to mention here. Because, you know, there are policies, and THEY MUST BE FOLLOWED.
I also suspect there's a certain amount of IAATM here. The district probably claimed her for funds. They probably also want the results of a good student to prop up stats.
Good on Ms. Phanachone for standing up for herself! I'll be adding to the collection of notes to the district.
FWIW, I almost failed to graduate because of a similarly stupid policy. Luckily for me, the absences that were being listed as unexcused had been at the request of the school administration.
My GPA in the 3.9, class rank of 7/235, and SATs over 1500 and A+ in the class meant nothing as my ass was two hours short of the minimum time in the classroom for a one semester English course.
Making the point that what they had me doing (voluntarily on my part - I wasn't stupid and wanted to avoid that teacher's class!) likely violated labor laws might have made them change their minds about classification. The vice principal who told me about my failure to graduate seemed pretty happy up until I pointed out that I'd been promised excused absences by the head principal. Not my fault they didn't put any limits on it.
The comments to the article are the usual mix of stupidity and support. Some of the are racially tinged.
Alas the level of "she should just take the damned test" is pretty consistent with any high schooler standing up to overbearing administrations.
I salute students everywhere who are standing up to administrative stupidity and inflexibility.
"I don't know if the test itself is demeaning or racist, but the no exceptions policy certainly looks that way."
I don't know for certain either, but my immediate suspicion is that if her parents had been, say, Polish immigrants, the test might've been waived. Again, unfounded suspicion, and I'd be pleased to be corrected.
I'll see if there's any such testing requirement in this area. We actually have a high number of Polish immigrants in two of our local towns, a middling number of native Polish speakers in mine. The RC church a block away from me does a Polish language mass weekly.
I had my truck hit by a Polish immigrant less than 24 hours here about 2 months ago. We waited for his brother to drive over to deal with the technicalities of the accident.
I'm a bit amused by the English/Spanish signs my town as well, since we have more native French than native Spanish speakers. (We have a very high French Canadian immigrant population - researchers come here to do field interviews). It surprises me that the stores that choose to cater to one population with signs ignore the other.
I've never heard of the testing being done here, though if it's part of federal money following ESL students, I'm sure it is. I'll see what I can track down next week about CT or local policies. Though from the sounds of it, the problem was at a district level in the case in question.
I still vote for IAATM. Or stupidity. Or both.
My experiences with school districts is that very often the majority of people in them have no clue what education laws say. We have homeschoolers told by school districts that things are legally required that are no where in statute on a regular basis. Even threatened with truancy or DCF action. Teachers, principals, superintendants, board of education majors - the level of ignorance of education law is astounding. This makes it perfectly plausible to me that the administrators in the case had it wrong and are now in a power struggle because they can't admit to being wrong to a student.
Given the way courts have ruled against students' rights time and again, the administrators are probably also feeling that if they don't back down, they have a pretty good case of walking away fine even if a suit is brought. If they say they were wrong however, they're likely facing a loss in a civil lawsuit brought by the student and her family.
I think it's more bullying, because the source article indicates other Iowa school districts don't feel the test is a requirement with no exceptions:
Yeah, I saw that too. Which is why IIATM came to mind - it all depends on how she was recorded.
Looking for information about the test online has led me to ties to NCLB assessments, where "students with limited English proficiency" are a defined subclass for assessment.
In addition to the school as a whole, each subgroup must meet minimum testing numbers and adequate yearly progress. Students refusing to take the tests that are used for for NCLB are counted as failing under NCLB.
Under NCLB, if fewer than 95% of students take the required test(s), the school fails. If too many students don't pass the test, the school fails. A student with high proficiency taking the test for one of the special populations is a gift to many school districts. Such a student refusing to take the test? Double jeopardy. It doesn't take much for a school to Not much likelyhood for bullying and intimidation there, huh?
These requirements make it so things like my high school not making adequate yearly progress while at the same time being labeled one of the best high schools in the country happen. They failed on number of students testing. I bet they were on everyone to test the following year! Two consecutive years of not making AYP and a district gets labeled as "in need of improvement." This subjects them to more NCLB requirements.