Key Features:
- shares the human stories of how recent testing policy is affecting schools and the daily lives of teachers and students
- language policy in the US is examined from the top-down and the bottom-up perspectives in both a practical and theoretical way
Summary:
This book explores how high-stakes tests mandated by No Child Left Behind have become de facto language policy in U.S. schools, detailing how testing has shaped curriculum and instruction, and the myriad ways that tests are now a defining force in the daily lives of English Language Learners and the educators who serve them.
Review:
Kate Menken’s English Learners Left Behind: Standardized Testing as Language Policy is an illuminating work. Menken’s analysis of ELL’s educational experiences in the current high-stakes testing climate is thoughtful and unique. Perhaps most importantly, her work addresses an issue that has until now been relatively ignored. This is a must read book for all educators of K-12 students, but most importantly for those working with ELL students.
Penelope Wong, Teachers College Record, May 30, 2008 Focusing on the U.S. context, this important book is of relevance to anyone thinking about the relationship between school assessment and educational processes and practices throughout the world.
Ofelia García, Teachers College, Columbia University English Learners Left Behind is an outstanding, albeit troubling, study of how language policy is made in the surreal world of American education. As the first scholar to exhaustively document the pernicious effects of high-stakes testing for ELL students, Kate Menken has performed an invaluable service for both children and educators. All U.S. politicians should be required to read her book - and pass a test on it - before voting on misguided legislation like No Child Left Behind.
James Crawford, President, Institute for Language and Education Policy
Author Biography:
Kate Menken is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in an Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. Previously, she was a teacher of English as a second language.
Readership Level:
Postgraduate Research / Professional
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