Testing and ideology: policy debates about literacy assessments for Colorado’s bilingual students

ABSTRACT

The Colorado Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act requires grade-level attainment in literacy in English for students in grades K-3. Its practical outcome, however, has been to pressure schools with bilingual programs to shift their instructional language allocations towards more English in the early grades. Proposed rule revisions debated by the state Board of Education sought to facilitate testing in students’ language of instruction for those in bilingual programs. Analysis of written and verbal opposition to the proposed rule revisions demonstrates the persistence of insidious ethnoculturalist discourses opposing bilingual education as well as the cooptation of liberal multiculturalist discourses that, while framing bilingualism as an asset, argue that it is underdeveloped in bilingual programs that do not include English instruction from the outset. Given that bilingual instruction has demonstrated time and again that it benefits students acquiring English in schools, such new discursive turns pose a threat that must be recognized to fend off further legislative and regulatory attempts against bilingual education.

KEYWORDS:

• Language ideologies
• bilingual education
• language policy and planning (LPP)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luis E. Poza

Luis E. Poza is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at San José State University. Previously, he served in the program in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education at the University of Colorado Denver. His research focuses on language ideologies as they manifest in educational practice and policy, particularly with respect to Latinx multilingual learners and their schooling experiences. He is a former elementary school teacher, a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, a member of the Working Group on ELL Policy (http://ellpolicy.org) that conducts and applies research regarding education of emergent bilinguals in partnerships with states and districts, and a board member of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education.

Kara M. Viesca

Kara M. Viesca is an Assistant Professor of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her research focuses on advancing equity in the policy and practice of educator development, particularly for teachers of multilingual students. She is the Principal Investigator/Project Director of the International Consortium for Multilingual Excellence in Education, a 5-year project providing teachers in 11 states and several countries in Europe with access to professional learning eWorkshops for educators regarding effective practices with multilingual students in K-12 classrooms and schools.