Swimming: On Oxygen, Resistance, and Possibility
English-only movements, sustained finance inequities, policy moves toward privati-
zation, the unfunded implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and the dev-
astating collateral effects of high-stakes exit exams on immigrant youth who are
English-language learners ([ELLs] Foley 1995; Valenzuela 2005). With a particular
focus on high-stakes examinations, more likely to be implemented in states with the
highest concentrations of youth classified as ELLs, we consider how education pol-
icy becomes infused with national anxieties about perceived threats to our "national"
community, language, and culture. We seek to understand how schools act as border
patrols by denying diplomas, and how they enable border crossing into critical edu-
cational possibilities.
Honoring the memory of Anzald6a and the international swimmers, children
stuffed in boats from Haiti and Asia, sneaking under fences and mothers' skirts,
and those who have been here too long for whom the bells of opportunity and
freedom have yet to toll, our article seeks to expose the systematic effects of "sub-
tractive" public policy (Valenzuela 2005) on young people as more states choose to
adopt high- stakes exit exams to determine graduation (in)eligibility under NCLB.
Traveling from the West coast to the East, we map the extent to which these poli-
cies produce a new class of internal exiles-young people who will be "academi-
cally undocumented," that is, denied the reach of a high school diploma and
exempted from higher education. We focus, in particular, on students deemed
"English-language learners."
We focus on schools, districts, and policies that operate as border guards by deny-
ing diplomas but, even more so, on schools, communities, and research projects that
have shaped themselves in resistance-bridging cultures, opportunities, communi-
ties, despair, and hope-the sources of oxygen for these international swimmers. In
this special volume of AEQ dedicated to qualitative evidence, we cross methodolog-
ical borders, importing statistical reports, testimony from lawsuits, teacher inter-
views, ethnography, and students' maps, to reveal just how contested public
schooling-the diploma passport-is today for young people new to the United
States and new to English.
NCLB, High-Stakes Exit Examinations, and Immigrant Youth:
A Case of Subtractive Public Policy
ELLs are one of the fastest growing populations in American schools. Between
1994 and 2004, the percentage of ELLs enrolled in U.S. schools increased by 65 percent
and are predicted to make up 30 percent of the U.S. student population by the year
2015 (Batalova 2006). With so many immigrant children and ELLs entering U.S.
schools, it is critical to examine the effects of education policy on the lives of these
transnational youth. The stated goals of NCLB are important ones: to close the
achievement gap between white and "minority" students and to hold schools respon-
sible for the academic performance of students who have traditionally been over-
looked. Under NCLB, disaggregated data reported by subgroups reveal the uneven
distribution of failure. 2 Yet, rhetoric aside, the policies of NCLB have actually
imposed an inequitable accountability system exclusively based on tests, delimiting
possibilities for ELLs and minority student achievement, and constricting democratic
and pluralistic visions of citizenship and education in this country (De Jesus and
Vasquez 2005).
Fine et al. 77