Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

Bilingual Education 267Similarly, Larson’s (2007) collection demonstrates the attractiveness ofthis ‘industry’ for the corporate vultures now hovering over theramifications of the NCLB legislation. The broader issue of educationalprivatization is the subject of Weathers’s (2007) working-paper. He writesfrom a ‘critical discourse’ perspective, which leads him to makestatements about ‘the colonization of democratic discourse’ and ‘thelarger struggle over control of the symbolic space’ (Weathers, 2007: 67,89). I would argue that, while textual analysis of highly charged issues inthe public arena is likely to confirm the debating and discourse strategiestypically used when large amounts of money are at stake, microscopicexamination of the ‘symbolic space’ is less important than forthrightaction in ‘real space’.A collection by Valenzuela et al. (2007) focuses on NCLB as it affectsminority-group children. Particular attention is given not to test scoresand other educational statistics, but rather to qualitative and ethnographicinsights. Among the most cutting commentaries is that ofMcDermott and Hall (2007: 11), who, after invoking the horrors ofHard Times and Gradgrind’s insistence on fact, go on to note:What a good idea, to leave no child left behind, and what a revoltingdevelopment that its main effect has been to record just who is beingleft behind according to increasingly constrained versions of knowledgemeasured on high-stakes tests... NCLB eviscerates curriculumand teaching in classrooms.The increased emphasis upon English proficiency, coupled with theintensive testing ethos of the new arrangements, certainly does meanmore difficulties for children who are not native speakers of English (seeFine et al., 2007). Not only are their particular situations given lessattention, their inclusion in the school populations to be tested can resultin lower overall ‘scores’ in what is termed the ‘Adequate Yearly Progress’assessment. In terms of ‘breaking out’ ESL pupils, as they comprise oneof the groups to be ‘disaggregated’ in the assessment reports, anotherproblem is that the classification of these pupils, and the measurement oftheir language abilities, is not at all clear under the enabling legislation.Indeed, ESL children, unlike Hispanic or black youngsters, constitute agroup that is by its nature in flux; see McNamara and Roever (2006). AsEvans and Hornberger (2005) have written, the incentive for schools todo well on the annual testing exercises could and should theoreticallymean that more attention will be paid to ESL children. It is in thecollective interest, after all. But such a theoretical consequence is oftenswamped in the practical demands for more and more time to be given to