Springdale school administrators say the drop in scores can be attributed to the fact that more students taking the test this year speak predominately Spanish, and little English. Springdale has the largest group of Spanish-speaking students in the state. As part of the No Child Left Behind Act, students who have previously been excluded from taking the Benchmark Exam because of language deficiencies, took it this year. For the Springdale school district, that means more than 450 English-Language Learners in grades 6 through 8 took the test this year... and literacy scores fell a few percentage points in most grades. "It gets a little tougher when students move here in the 7th, 8th, or 9th grade with no language skills," says Assistant Superintendent for grades 6-12, Don Love. Love says although literacy scores were down, some areas, like math, actually improved, namely because math is a universal language. "We're talking about some bright kids, they just have some language issues, as you or I would being tested in a language we don't speak very well." He says administrators will use the test results to better serve their students. "We'll come up with a building level plan for addressing the gaps in students education."
