cambio de colores (change of colors)
latinos in missouri: neighbors in urban and rural communities

march 12-14, 2003
university of missouri-kansas city

No Child Left Behind Workshop

By Mariana De Maio
A report contributed by

• Dee Beck, Coordinator of Federal Programs, State of Missouri, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Division of Instruction
• Joe Tillman, State Director, Migrant English Language Learners

According to the panelists the new law �No Child Left Behind� is a new entity with also new guidance.� They say this is still evolving, and that Missouri applies what the United States Department of Education says.� They say everything is a draft and will continue to be like that. According to the panelists �No Child Left Behind� permits schools to use census data for identification data, and transitional programs (such as esl) guidance becomes available. The question is: how we are going to identify these children?

For LEP there are two different identification processes. With No Child Left Behind school administrators need to rewrite the mechanism.

A person from the audience, a St. Louis teacher, said that they service 231 students total in St. Louis. She said that by strict definition they service more kids that those they can report because the definition does not apply to all of them, even though they still need the service. Out of those 231 only 81 could be counted, she said. For example, anyone born in the United States couldn�t count, she added.

Dee Beck replied to her. She said that the Department of Education could fix that problem.

Joe Tillman said that schools will have to demonstrate their capacity of Title I staff, needed to provide services to these children, and this as well will demonstrate their capacity as a school district.

He said that it is good to have migrant and lep students in the same category.

There are less than 20 certified teachers, and some school districts try to keep the number of children with ESL needs so they don�t have to have certify teachers.

Tillman said that they will have to depend on school districts� information, but also they would need to develop a network, and double check and see if we missed district information.

Somebody from the audience said that the most important thing is to prove more funding for higher qualified teachers, and take people out of the field to hold administrators accountable.

The panel said that Title 2 has three priorities:

1. Every child should have a qualified teacher.

2. High quality professional development.

3. Reduced class size.

They said that in addition to Title 1 they are going to be asking school districts to identify multiple characteristics of the children.

Somebody said that the problem is not to identify these children, it is a difficult job and there aren�t good mentoring programs.

The panelists said that the certification requirements have changed in the last years, and it is important to help those who are already certified to be able to work in different areas.

It is important to have mentoring programs to make sure we don�t lose these people.

One important task is to look for a GEDoption for them, that most districts are implementing, so that they can get their regular high school diploma.

The problem, a teacher from the audience said, is that you need a social security number.

Somebody else mentioned the �Secundaria for Mexicans� program in some counties.

The panelists said that under �No Child Left Behind Act� it is difficult to do anything else because it is pulling funding for other things.

Tillman said that the Rural Education Program is part of No Child Left Behind.

They talked about budget cuts and how districts have to cut money from this year�s program, and how the legislature is trying to figure out what to do for next year.

However, they said, federal money is continuing to increase.

They also talked about the school administrators� conference that will take place in August 2003. The mentioned the need to have a session just on services for migrant students and LEP children. Tillman said that they can assist school administrators in building programs for migrant students and LEP children.� However, they still have to demonstrate that capacity and show the numbers.

There were also questions from the audience about MAP testing and whether these tests are going to be in Spanish or not and whether answers in Spanish are going to be accepted even though the tests are in English.

Beck said that they are going to accept many things, teachers could read directions in the native language; give more time to answer the questions.

They said that teachers have to take into consideration that this is not a special education accommodation; it is an LEP accommodation.

She said that next year there would be no exceptions for LEP for MAP.