English-only tests, judge rules


More than 10,000 native Spanish speakers in Santa Cruz County will have to continue to take standardized tests in English, a San Francisco Judge ruled Monday.

Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer dismissed part of a lawsuit brought by eight school districts — including Pajaro Valley Unified — that demanded students be allowed to take the test in Spanish.

The lawsuit claims that testing students only in English does not accurately measure their abilities because they get many questions wrong simply because they don't understand English, which makes it harder to do word problems in math or show mastery of grammar.

Twenty-three schools in the county are under sanctions of No Child Left Behind because of low scores on standardized tests, including more than a dozen in Watsonville. Each of those schools, which could eventually be taken over by the state or a charter school organization, is in trouble due to the performance of non-native English speakers.

It's not clear if attorneys will appeal the ruling. But teachers insisted Monday that state tests need to be tailored to suit English-learners at different levels of English ability to gauge how well they're learning a new language and concepts in other subjects.

"If you're just looking at the test itself, all you're proving is that a student doesn't know English," said Lucia Villarreal, a kindergarten teacher at Starlight Elementary.

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