children needs to go beyond the school and include parents and the entire community. [Nashville Schools] are a standards-based district. We will continue to expect our teachers to teach the standards.”
Like the rest of the nation the Nashville Schools are looking for ways to meet compliance with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act. Districts with large groups of foreign speaking students, like the Nashville Schools, are especially challenged because all tests are administered in English. The means that an ELL third grade student who is introduced to English for the first time is expected to take and pass the same test as her native English speaking peers. And despite the claim that the teachers of Nashville Schools are able to bring students to English proficiency in just over 3 years, most language experts claim that true acquisition of a second language takes 5-7 years. This has some of the educators in Nashville Schools scratching their heads and asking if NCLB should be altered to meet the realities of ELL and special needs students. The national debate between setting immovable standards and meeting the realities of student needs is echoed precisely in the halls of the Nashville Schools.
Patricia Hawke is a staff writer for Schools K-12, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. For more information please visit Nashville Schools
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