This article talks about the use of general outcomes measures (GOM) that is used as an integral part of the RTI process that is used in determining the academic success of a student. This article brings a point in that the use of GOM is seldom challenged in this process. The GOMs can be conformed to be used to assess ELLs with disabilities. Standardizing these GOMs can cause harm however as they may not be valid. This article suggests that caution should be exercised in wanting to use this for assessing ELLs in special education. It is important to remember that assessments are used assuming every student is the same and is receiving the same quality education. The article reminds the reader that it is important to remember that special education was created to assist students who are not the same including ELL students.

I believe this article talks about good points. One of these good points is that we expect all students to be the same so we use assessments that have only been norrmed on a certain population. If a student does not pass the assessment, then the student needs special education. But if the student is an ELL student, then the student is going to be referred more often because they may not have the appropriate language acquisition to appropriately complete the assessment. Another point is that the assessments also take into consideration that all students receive the same quality education from the same highly qualified educators. I think the article does a great job of reminding administrators of assessments that not all students are equal and to be careful as to what assessments they are using.

I chose this article because I believe in what I stated in the above paragraph about the assumption of students in assessments. I believe this is also an important for school counselors to know because they can advocate for ELL students in special education. They can make sure that these students are being assessed correctly and are receiving the appropriate services that these students are actually entitled to receive. Other research that has been presented in this module stressed how ELLs are over-represented and underrepresented in special education and gifted programs. I wanted to share this article so others can understand this knowledge and use it for their advocacy.
       

            This article talks about the endgame for an ELL student and the role a school counselor to assist these students to get to their endgame and not the schools. It talks about the struggles that ELL face in college through admission exams. ELL students often do not receive some types of college degrees without paying a price for it such as spending more money on tuition because they are taking more courses for remediation, sense of low self worth, and wasted time. The article suggested five steps that schools and school counselors can implement to help ELLs bridge the gap between high school and post secondary schools. School counselors can help connect ELL students to schools that are looking to diversify their population and can set up ELLs for success for the different assessments that they need to complete to enter college by working with local colleges and universities.

            I think this article brings about some points that as a school counselor would be important in working with ELL students. I liked the steps that they suggest in order open the world of college up to them. I was surprised that the article mentioned that some private schools set up full ride scholarships that would actually make them cheaper than most state schools where there may not be financial help for ELLs. I liked the point in which the article stated that school districts are concentrated on meeting yearly progress that the school district are not providing resources to ELLs to assist them going to college and be able to handle the demands of college. School counselors need to fill this void to give ELLs the best opportunities that they are able to achieve. 

            I chose this article as I personally never thought about assisting ELLs to obtain some post secondary education and setting them up for success. I wanted to share this article with everyone because I believe there are others that may not be aware of this. This article brings together everything that we have been learning thus far in this semester and prove how critical it is to be an advocate for ELLs. My hope is that others can take this article and always remember what happened in the first part of this article to Jose when he visited the counselor’s office with his friend. Luckily for Jose he was able to overcome these obstacles and was able to earn his master’s degree. We as counselors need to empower all of our students and I believe this article stresses this point.

If I were to rate this article, I would give the article a seven.  I would give this article a because the article was written in 1995. However, I think this article is excellent at getting the point across that school counselors have an enormous role when working with assessments. When looking at this article, you will see all material is organized and focused. This article is easy for one to understand, and shows the reader that assessments can be a vital component in our efforts to improve student education. Knowledgeable use of new classroom assessment strategies will lead to more accurate assessment-based inferences about students.

I chose this article as a beginning school counselor because I think it is important to realize that not all stakeholders have taken a course on different assessments. I also believe it is important to understand that school staff will be turning to school counselors for guidance regarding non-traditional methods. School counselors play a role in advocating and explain different assessments to teachers, as well as making sure the assessments are fair for all students including English Language Learners. This article states that many books have been published dealing with the innards of performance testing and portfolio assessment. By looking at a few of these texts, school counselors can acquire an understanding of both of these assessment approaches. Having more knowledge on assessments will allow school counselors to advocate for not only teachers but students as well.

Popham, W. J., & ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Student Services, G. N. (1995). New Assessment Methods for School Counselors. ERIC Digest. 

 If I were to rate this article, I would give the article a ten. I like that this article has numerous references at the end. All the material in this article is organized and focused on English Language Learners and grading. A model for this article is also provided for readers regarding appropriate expectations without support titled “A Model for Grading Exceptional Learners”. - (Model Steps- 1. Determine whether each exception is attainable, 2. Determine the type of adaptation needed, 3. Determine the Modified Expectation,4. Base grades on modified expectations, and 5. Communicate the Meaning of the Grade).    As a school counselor, it is important to realize that grading practices are grounded on tradition rather than best practice. I believe that this method can be useful when grading English Language Learners. 

 I chose this article because I felt it was the most helpful article related to grading English Language Learners. As a beginning school counselor, I need to be an advocate for both teachers, students, and parents. Many grades are not accurate indicators as to what English Language Learners can do. Assigning a failing grade to a student who has not met grade-level requirements because of a disability or difficulty with the language is not fair, especially if the student has done what the teacher asked. As a school counselor, it will be substantial for me to help develop and implement policies for assigning fair and accurate grades to exceptional learners. With a high-quality grading system in place, schools can develop fair and precise procedures for reporting on the achievement of English Language Learners.

 
Jung, L. A., & Guskey, T. R. (2011). Fair & Accurate Grading for Exceptional Learners. Principal Leadership, 12(3), 32-37. �


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This article is a small book. This book is a recommended read. It goes into great detail about how the No Child Left behind act and standardized testing does not accurately measure ELL student abilities. The most useful piece of this book was chapter five. This chapter depicts the struggles of students who are actually left behind due to testing difficulties. The articles even adds quotes from students, which i found the most impactful. One of the students says "I’m not born here, and even when people they born here even they can’t pass. So what do they expect for us? Like that, with three yearsliving here for the first time, it’s not right." Following these statements
the article depicts the struggles these same students have with having to retake Regent exams over and over again. Finally this book says that testing is fuel for them to drop out and leave the country, or get their GED, which is startling. 

I believe this article was extremely informative, for someone that is unaware of testing difficulties not only for ELL students but regular education students as well. The major concern i have is in the part about the legislation, they do not go into detail all of the supports that are in place for ELL students. The books addition of actual voices of students was eye opening and a major asset to the book. The impact of ELL students future due to testing was important as well for life long learning concerns.Finally the book was very one sided, and i believe that not all ELL students may feel this way, but the ones that do, need assistance 
and change. 

I would recommend this book to a school counselor, or anyone learning about testing. I am not a fan of testing and the book really strengthen my viewpoint on this. I think that seeing the struggles that the futures of students look like could change the viewpoints of a lot of people on testing. This article gave me different ideas to work with ELL students in the future. Inclusion and empathy could go a long way especially when 

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Menken, K. (2008). English Learners Left Behind : Standardized Testing As Language Policy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Menken, Kate. English Learners Left Behind : Standardized Testing As Language Policy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2008. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

 

This resource addresses the challenges schools face when trying to assess, grade, and provide feedback to ELLs. This article talks about the common core standards that all ELL students will face in America and the impact it will have in the assessment of content and English language proficiency. It goes into great detail as to how the common core state standards effect on ELL students. The author discusses the establishment of a differentiated content assessment for the Common Core state standard tests. ELL students are required by law to be identified, classified, and provided with additional appropriate services until English proficient. The author discusses the challenges about the state assessments. 

 

This article was informative and I enjoyed learning more about ELL student assessments. It provided a number of the different assessments states had in place for ELL students. In addition, it provided the challenges ELL students and teachers face based on student assessment. Some concerns that the author described were the lack of information for ELL students and their teachers. This includes the concerns about bilingual students. However, I would have liked to see more ways of how the challenges could be changed as well as what teachers/students/government standards should be concerned on when creating new standards for ELL student assessments. 

 

I would recommend this journal article to anyone that needs more information on the challenges that students face based upon ELL student assessment. The common core standards are hard to grasp. Therefore, this article can help provide information to those that need to understand more thoroughly about assessing ELL students. I think that it is important for those to understand the struggles that students and teacher face when creating new standards for ELL students. I and other students can use this article as a reference for our class supplemental materials if students would like to learn more about ELL student assessment. 

 

This resource specifically addresses what my role as a school counselor or school psychologist is with respect to assessment of ELLs. The journal article identifies the extent to which school counselors use various intervention strategies to promote college attendance for ELL students. This article directly relates to higher education school counselors. In addition, the article identifies the importance of collaborating with the school and community to promote college-going rates. Cook (2012) discusses the high drop out rates Latina/o face compared to white non-Latinoa/o peers. Furthermore, the author provides the consequences of the drop of rates and how school counselors can have an effect on Latina/o students. Also included are the results based on the ELL student study of the effect that school counselors have on Latina/o students. 

 

I believe this research article was an informative piece of information. This information can provide school counselors knowledge of how to increase student academic achievement. This article concluded that the more involved in the students’ academic achievement, the more likely the student would not drop out as well pursue higher education. Also, the author concludes a positive correlation between involvement in higher education in high school such as college credits and collegiate courses. The article also finds a positive correlation between Spanish speaking school counselors and ELL student academic achievement. 

 

Reflecting upon this resource, I would recommend it to others. This research information is valuable for school counselors and those involved in ELL education. This research study concludes many of the suggested promotions of ELL academic achievement and the effects each suggestion has on each. New school counselors can use this information to indicate which types of interventions could help to promote academic success. The author suggests considering a variety of factors that can have an affect on academic achievement. For the role of school counselors, we need to lend support to the importance of providing adequate resources in promoting academic achievement. This can involve acquiring bilingual counselors and teachers, materials printed and distributed in Spanish, tutoring and after school programs, mentoring programs, and Multicultural clubs/ activities.  

 

This article discusses some of the barriers and solutions involved in testing ELL students. It appears that an inconsistency in LEP classification is a considerable barrier. There is relatively low correlation between scores on Language Assessment Scales and LEP classification codes for ELL students. In addition, the same or lower correlations exist between LEP classification codes and scores on standardized tests. The concepts between tests are not consistent which leads to different results from different tests. The article discusses the lack of norms of ELL students in standardized testing. It also warns of testing ELL students in English only, in that the test acts as a reading test as well as what it is designed to test. 

            The article discusses a fair amount of resources, all of which are within a few years of the publishing date. It yields similar points of discussion as compared to other readings related to this course. The lack of norms for the ELL population is still relevant presently and is a great point of discussion in the article. It is important to note that the article discussed a few relevant topics related to assessment of ELL students. In addition, the author listed suggestions to solve the problems discussed, which include reference to relevant sources. I will note that the author included some information that had no research associated with it. However, it was noted that the author has yet to find relevant reference to the information.

            This resource does echo points discussed in other research I have done, which is one reason I would use and suggest this article. The article advocates well for the ELL students in that it gives suggestions related to resources available to ELL students. The author acknowledges the time frame it takes ELL students to gain academic language and achievement, which is generally overlooked. The author discusses specific standardized tests in his section on standardized tests and ELL norms. I like that he gives specific assessments so the reader may look into these further, rather than blanketing his points to standardized tests in general. As advocates we must continually educate ourselves on relevant topics, which in this case is the use of different standardized tests. I also like that the author provided integrated approaches in his problem solving solutions. 

 

The article discusses the issues Caribbean students face and the role of the school counselor in assessment and placement of these students. Teachers tend to see language differences as academic handicaps. The school counselor has the task of promoting an assessment process that stresses language differences rather than language handicaps. Assessing the students’ competencies in English, use of these assessments in gifted and disability evaluations, and evaluating a student’s knowledge in respect to their culture. The school counselor should work with students, parents, and the community to foster the cultural differences of their students. A school counselor should use time dedicated to professional development to help educate the faculty on different cultures. The article stresses the use of cultural brokers to build better ties and understanding of Caribbean culture.
          I found this article to be relevant and well-researched. The author discussed a cultural community that can often be overlooked when we think of ELL populations because of their dialect of English. The article did a great job of advocating for the population and showing that it is relevant to fight for these students. It not only discussed the various ways a school counselor could foster a better relationship with the culture, but it discussed other issues these immigrants will face, such as experiencing racism for the first time. I liked that the article not only sought to educate the reader about different areas a school counselor should focus on to better serve the population, but also adequately educated the reader in those areas. The article provides good information related to some differences between the American and Caribbean school system. 

 

As I’ve said, I believe this article did a great job in advocating for Caribbean students. It provided a plethora of information that could be useful to any stakeholder, not just the school counselor. It gave tips for school counselors to better connect with this student population in a way that was different than other populations. A counselor could advocate for materials to be incorporated into the curriculum that were authored or produced in Creole English. I liked the inclusion of a dialogue journal with these students as well. It seems like an effective counseling tool that may be disregarded by some teachers and counselors because of the language differences. From all of this, I would use and recommend this article to any counselor or faculty member who has Caribbean students. 

This articles discusses the challenges high school teachers and staff face when trying to teach and assess English Language Learners. Standardize test are one of the biggest challenges among teachers. These tests do not accurately measure their abilities. A student might be able to communicate in English effectively but not be able to read or write. If they are unable to read the question, they will be unable to answer it correctly. Learning how to instruct and accommodate a diverse group of ELLs is another challenge addressed in this article. The teacher might have an easier time teaching an ELL student whose native language is similar to English. 

Teachers face many instructional challenges when teaching an ELL student. The teacher has to assess each student’s proficiency level and make accommodations based on their needs. The challenges teachers run into are that a student might read or write on a differently level than they speak. Another challenge is the stress of standardized tests. Teachers have to grade and make accommodations for ELLs to make them on the same level as the other students but not make it too easy that they are not learning.

 I would use this source because it discusses the challenges teachers face when dealing with English Language Learners. It gives real accounts on situations teachers had to deal with. The article discusses ways that teachers and schools can support English Language Learners and how to overcome some of these challenges. The schools can offer additional training to help ELL teachers develop instruction and assessments that align with the English language learner’s proficiency levels. Additionally, teachers can assess ELLs orally rather than written, if they struggle with writing, to better gage the students understanding.
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