The Aftermath of the Storm in Storm Lake
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The Aftermath of the Storm in Storm Lake

By Mary Ann Zehr — July 01, 2009 1 min read
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Do you remember the teenager of Lao descent who refused to take an English-language-proficiency test in Storm Lake, Iowa?

Well, her protest caused her school district to review and revise its policies on English-language learners. This sounds to me like a case in which administrators realized that the student, U.S.-born Lori Phanachone, had a point that their one-size-fits-all policy for identifying and testing ELLs wasn’t working well in all cases.

Here’s recent coverage of the matter by an Iowa radio station, KMEG, the Sioux City Journal and a blog, angry asian man. Update: Here’s coverage from the Des Moines Register as well.

Mary Ann Zehr
Mary Ann Zehr was an assistant editor for Education Week. Her beats included English-language learners, bilingual education, immigrants, dropouts, achievement-gap issues, and charter and private schools. She was the author of the blog Learning the Language.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Learning the Language blog.