History Chapter 2 Mahoney - Isabel Speight by Isabel Speight

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

spei1022 — 2025-04-06 19:13:36 UTC

Brown v. Board of Education was briefly mentioned in Chapter 2 (Mahoney, 2024), but it had an integral part in education today. Essentially, this court ruling allowed any student regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, culture, or language to receive education. Regarding assessing MLs in the present day, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) laid the framework for inclusive education essential for students of all different cultures who spoke different languages. This case ended the ruling of “separate but equal” passed by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

Mahoney, K. (2024). History: How did we get here? In The assessment of multilingual learners: Supporting English language learners (2nd ed., pp 29-54). Multilingual Matters: Bristol, UK

Lau v. Nichols (1974)

spei1022 — 2025-04-08 17:35:28 UTC

Lau v. Nichols (1974) was a Supreme Court case that essentially created importance for language programs in public schools. Language programs were ruled necessary in order to ensure equal educational opportunities for all students. This is crucial to the assessment of MLs today because in order for MLs to even take assessments (regarding content), they must be able to learn this content through comprehensible input. For MLs who do not speak English, comprehensible input would look like second language education, or an ENL program. In assessing MLs’ English proficiency, Lau v. Nichols (1974) was integral in allowing MLs to be placed according to their English proficiency in appropriate ways in school.

Title III of NCLB (2002)

spei1022 — 2025-04-08 17:47:54 UTC

The reason that title III was so important is because it was the first law that required states to form, publish, and implement English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards. Additionally, Title III implemented a single annual assessment that would attempt to accurately measure MLs' listening, reading, writing, and listening skills in the English language. Title III also implemented annual measurable achievement objectives (AMAOs) so that assessing MLs could be measured and compared and ultimately understood.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) 2002

spei1022 — 2025-04-08 17:50:50 UTC

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) had an ultimate goal that was to increase bilingual students’ access to education, but in terms of what they accomplished, it actually led to a deficit-mindset, or a deficit-lens of mindset. Rather than observing what students were able to do and what they were talented or gifted in, NCLB focused primarily on what questions students answered incorrectly on assessments and developed lessons based on their deficits.

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) 2015

spei1022 — 2025-04-08 17:52:00 UTC

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was supposed to be the new-and-improved version of the NCLB. However, the ESSA did end up still too focused on the effect one assessment has on the ELL rather than administering formative assessments and altering education for individual students from that. I believe that the ESSA is important to MLs today because the idea of multiple formative assessments originated from the need for an alternate way to evaluate MLs. The name of this event is slightly misleading as if every student were to succeed, differentiated instruction were to be necessary.