Decisions about where to place students are also often based on funding. When schools spend all the money can get for special programs, they may not be able to increase the number of students in them. Identification Some districts attempt to find out the English skills of all incoming students, others simply place students into classes and wait until language problems appear, and some districts fall somewhere in between. In New York City, for example, as the result of a lawsuit, all students with Hispanic surnames automatically are assessed for English skills, while others are assessed only if there is some reason to do so. If the answer to any question is something other than English, the student must take an English language exam.
Some districts make few, if any, formal assessments, while others do a great deal of testing.
The most common assessment method is some kind of formal testing, such as language proficiency exams, overall achievement tests, or both. Tests Many different achievement and language tests are used to decide whether to place a student in special English language or special education programs. To be as accurate as possible, the tests should measure all the ways a student uses English or another language, including understanding, speaking, and writing. This test measures only a low level of language knowledge, not the higher level that students need for success in schools and employment. Also, using only one test is not fair to students, because more testing is needed to find out their overall language ability.