HOW VALID ARE TESTS LIKELY TO BE WITH LEP STUDENTS?
Only limited evidence addresses the validity of tests with LEP students. Pennock-Roman (1990) has studied the use of various tests of admission to higher education with language-minority students, and her results apply for many uses of educational tests. In general, she concludes that tests like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) appear valid for most language-minority students. She also indicates, however, that these results hold only for the short term because students’ language abilities generally improve over time. For students with very weak English language skills, tests such as the SAT probably will not validly predict success. She also found that tests of educational achievement in Spanish improved the prediction of college grades over and above the SAT. Language-proficiency tests play an important role in the valid assessment of LEP students, and educators often use these tests to identify students likely to benefit from bilingual education (Duran, 1989). Perhaps we don’t need
