NORTH CAROLINA POLICY ANALYSIS: ACCOUNTABILITY
TESTING LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENT STUDENTS
Milbank (2002) reports that on January 8th of this year, President George W. Bush signed into law the most sweeping educational bill since 1965, and that one of the hallmark elements of this bill is accountability which is to be determined through the ongoing assessment of student performance for all students. However, long before this bill was signed, North Carolina had made accountability an issue and pursued the fair testing of students, especially students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP students). This paper presents a brief analysis of this policy and its attendant practices in the State using the framework of John Kingdon (1995) whose model holds that several influences operate on public policy formulation, enactment and implementation.
The Problem, The Climate and The Advocates
According to Kingdon (1995), for a policy to be enacted, there must be a widespread perception that there is a public problem need of a policy solution, an acceptable solution available, a sociopolitical climate that supports the policy, and advocates committed to the solution. In this regard, LaCelle-Peterson and Rivera (1994) state that the standard-based educational reform initiatives of the 1990s made it clear not only in North Carolina but the nation in general that all students required ongoing sound assessment as to whether they were achieving the high standards set for them.
Assessment was seen as the key method of demonstrating students' educational progress; however, in most cases, LEP students had typically been exempted from state assessments or included inappropriately (Waggoner, 1995). Thus, the climate was right for consideration of a policy for the assessment of LEP students. This because there was a national recognition of the problem, and support for resolving the problem from the Clinton administration (see: Rivera, Vin...