PRESS RELEASE
FOR RELEASE: Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Charles Jama-(617) 349-8525
Lesley University Prepares Teachers to Assess
Language-Minority Students with Special NeedsCAMBRIDGE, MA-- Lesley University will develop new models for assessing limited English proficient students with special needs through a major grant awarded by the US Department of Education. In addition, Lesley will prepare 20 bilingual teacher leaders in the Lowell Public Schools and will offer a Professional Certificate in language minority assessment upon completion of this program.
According to Dr. Maria de Lourdes B. Serpa, Professor and Director of the Language Minority Assessment Project at Lesley, the three-year, $700,000 grant has three major goals: to prepare teachers to develop leadership skills in effective practices for non-discriminatory assessment; to develop and pilot multimedia dual language assessment strategies; and to develop instructionally-oriented case studies on the assessment of language minority students referred to special education.
The over-representation of language minority students in special education programs has long challenged educators nationally. Experts say assessments now in place to gauge students’ learning are biased against non-native English speakers.
"We are working to develop a fair assessment process that is linguistically and culturally-sensitive for determining eligibility for special education services. Most of the current assessment practices were developed for monolingual native English speakers and are inappropriate for language minority students, thus contributing to the overrepresentation of bilingual students in special education," says Serpa.
Lesley partnered with the Lowell Public Schools because of the potential to develop and pilot assessments in a linguistically diverse urban community. Seventeen percent of Lowell’s Public School population has participated in transitional bilingual education programs. "More than half of the families of Lowell's schoolchildren speak a language other than English in their homes," says Dr. Karla Baehr, the Lowell Public Schools superintendent.
According to Dr. Mary Beth Curtis, Director of Lesley’s Center for Special Education and Co-author of this grant, this project will advance the critical work needed to prepare teachers on how to assess whether a student has a learning disability or a language difference. "The instructional materials developed in the form of cases will be powerful tools for teachers."
Dr. Serpa stressed that moving away from traditional assessment methods is essential because learning differences should be evaluated within the students’ cultural and linguistic context. "This is an opportunity to validate the process of distinguishing between language difference and learning disabilities, thereby making the process equitable for all language minority students."
At the end of the three-year project, the multimedia assessment design will have been field-tested and will serve as a model for evaluating language minority students with special needs. According to Professor Serpa "federal law requires non-discriminatory assessment of all students. The major outcome of this project will be the development of appropriate assessment strategies and tools to be used within school districts; which will ultimately reduce, not increase, the representation of language minority students in special education."
Lesley www.lesley.edu is a multi-site university with undergraduate and graduate programs for women and men in education, management, human services and the arts. Lesley is among the 10 largest master's degree programs in the United States, offering programs at its Cambridge and Boston campuses and at more than 150 sites throughout Massachusetts and in 17 states. Lesley's six schools include: the Adult Baccalaureate College, the School of Education; the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences; the School of Management; The Art Institute of Boston, and Lesley College, an undergraduate school for women.
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