Stanford 9 Test Results

Missing in your recent articles on the politics of the Stanford 9 test results are two factors that no doubt shaped the examination outcome in many schools. First, students taking the battery of tests, well aware that their performance would affect the school and not themselves, had at best a lukewarm personal motive to do well.

Second, schools giving the test for the first time had an incentive for their students to perform poorly, because scores from the initial testing year would be the benchmark for comparing future test results. Low first-time scores would not only raise chances of improved results in subsequent testing years but also would enhance the school’s image for having brought about that improvement.

MICHAEL BLAKER

Indian Wells

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I have noticed a disturbing trend in the debate over California test results. Many people assume that teachers must lower their standards in order to teach limited-English students. As an English Language Development teacher, I have managed to maintain a rigorous academic curriculum while building my students’ language skills. My advanced ELD students, who are not yet fluent English proficient, read ninth-grade texts such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “Animal Farm” and “The Odyssey.”

They write every day in English, they participate in classroom debates. The only difference between my classroom and a “mainstream” English classroom is that I have to alter some of my teaching techniques and strategies. I do not and never will “water down” my curriculum to accommodate limited-English students. I have found that my students live up to high expectations and often outperform their peers who speak English fluently. Language only becomes a barrier if we make it one.

STEPHANIE SULLIVAN

Cypress