I’m confident that the vast majority of mandates come from a place of good intentions. however they often have unintended consequences that can produce the opposite of what the designers intended. Let’s take a look at some data to see how this works.
With a quick look at this data, you would ask yourself, which of these groups needs attention – maybe even a mandate? I would vote for that green bar, wouldn’t you? Well, you and I would both be wrong, for the group that gets a mandate is this one.
So, why would the state of California pick the second highest performing group to deliver their mandate and send schools across the state scurrying to monitor these children. Actually it’s quite logical, yet ultimately wasteful.
These students who benefit from the mandate of which I speak are Redesignated Fluent English Proficient students. This means that they were once English Learners (actually they are still English Learners by my definition – a topic of another post) and they have now reached English fluency by multiple measures including proficiency on the California English Language Development Test (CELDT).
The mandate is clear that RFEP students must be monitored for two years after redesignation. It makes sense. We don’t want schools to forget about these students just because they have reached fluency. There is the real chance that they still have gaps in their learning and might fall through the cracks. This mandate makes further sense in that the English Learners who are that low performing group, its assumed, are already receiving attention and instruction to support their language and academic needs.
The reality is that – because of the mandate – a system of bureaucratic monitoring is engaged in by schools across California for this high performing group and the state of California sends out monitors to ensure that the follow through occurs. At the very least schools must prove that they are meeting with these students and document their action plan. This task takes up a significant amount of time and energy that cannot be devoted to students who clearly have a greater need.
The tradeoff is quite clear. You can force schools to perform perfunctory monitoring of students who are mostly well on their way to academic success, and no doubt you will catch a few students who are falling through the cracks. However, the cost of this monitoring is that more and more English Learners – in particular Long Term English Learners are receiving less attention and have never got up out of the chasm of low performance.
What’s a leader to do?
Put more energy, time, and attention to the students who need it based on the data.
Monitor if you must but find a way to do so that is efficient and only focuses on those RFEPs who are truly struggling. Use the data to convince the monitoring police that your attention to a smaller number of RFEP students is justified.
Encourage the state of California to eschew mandates, well-intentioned or not, and set policy that allows schools and districts to make decisions at the local level to address their strengths and weaknesses.
Learning Essentials 