A picture depicting "Mis Emociones" (My Emotions) on display in a Spanish-language classroom at Riverbank Elementary School in West Columbia.

COLUMBIA — When students across South Carolina sat for their state standardized tests in May, tens of thousands were looking at math problems or science questions that weren't in their native tongue.

About the Education Lab

The Post and Courier’s Education Lab focuses on issues and policies affecting South Carolina’s education system. It is supported by donations and grants to the nonprofit Public Service and Investigative Fund, whose contributors are subject to the same coverage we apply to everyone else. For more information and to donate, go to postandcourierfund.com .

The state is one of a minority in the country that doesn't offer its standardized tests in foreign languages due to a 1987 law setting English as the official language. Over 30 other states, plus Washington, D.C., allow at least math tests to be translated, according to a 2020 report from the Migration Policy Institute.

State data shows the number of students learning English as a second language surging in recent years, up to 76,960 in the 2024-25 school year, about 10 percent of public school enrollment. That's a 35 percent increase since 2018; the state's enrollment as a whole only increased by 2 percent over the same time.

Some say English-only state testing is limiting school officials' ability to measure the academic progress of these students. They can only translate the test's directions.

"If we're trying to measure students' math knowledge but we're only measuring them in a language they're not proficient in, instead of measuring their math content knowledge, we're really measuring their language knowledge," said Katie Crook, director of the S.C. Multilingual Learner Educator Network.

Proponents for native language assessments got a brief bit of hope earlier this year when the state Senate included in its budget bill a provision allowing Lexington County school districts to implement a pilot program of such tests in 2026. But the proviso , introduced by state Sen. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews, didn't make it out of budget negotiations between the legislature's two chambers.

Ott thinks a one- or two-year program would have let schools assess the impact of testing in other languages and judge whether it made a difference on test scores. House lawmakers opposed the provision amid concerns from the S.C. Department of Education about how it would be implemented, said state Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, a Charleston Democrat who sat on the budget conference committee.

An Education Department spokeswoman said the department "remains laser-focused" on improving students' English reading skills so they're prepared for state testing.

Federal education law directs states to "make every effort" to develop assessments in non-English languages spoken by a significant number of their students, but South Carolina is one of several states that received federal approval for an education plan without such testing because of the state's English-only law.

"Students are not provided the opportunity to learn content in languages other than English, so testing them in other languages would not result in valid test scores," that state plan reads .

Officials in the Lexington Two district, across the Congaree River from Columbia , have reason to believe that testing in other languages could impact its students' scores. The 8,500-student district had about about 1,800 multilingual learners last year, and offered to its native Spanish speakers a Spanish version of MAP testing, a computer-based test that many schools use to measure student learning, but which isn't a part of the statewide assessment system set by law.

Students did "much better" on the test in their native language than on a similar English-language test, according to David McDonald, the Cayce and West Columbia district's chief academic and innovation officer.

"Many of our kids struggle to show the true progress that they're making, the true abilities that they have, because the test is in a different language than what they might be accustomed to speaking, and also they're trying to learn to speak English at the same time," McDonald said.

Some kids in that position might end up just guessing on standardized tests, said Rosa Castro Feinberg, a retired education professor at Florida International University and board chair of ASPIRA of the Mid-Atlantic, a Hispanic advocacy organization. That makes the tests ineffective in telling teachers what sort of instruction those students need.

"Think of the trauma of having to sit in front of a test where you don't understand a word, and you know that it's important somehow or other for your future, and you know you can't do it, you can't pass the test," she said. "That's not a good situation for children to be in."

The concept does have limitations, experts say.

While research suggests that students should be evaluated in a way that lets them demonstrate what they know, native language testing is most efficient in situations where students are learning the subject in that language, said Julie Sugarman, associate director for K-12 education research at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Otherwise, students might not have the necessary content-specific vocabulary — even if a student is a native Spanish speaker, a Spanish-language biology test might not make much difference if they've only learned how to describe biological functions in English.

That could limit its efficacy in a mostly English-speaking state such as South Carolina, though some school systems are trying to up their multilingual efforts . Lexington Two, for instance, piloted a dual language immersion program last year, where two kindergarten classes at Riverbank Elementary School were taught in English and Spanish . About half of its students came from Spanish-language backgrounds, The Post and Courier previously reported.

Translating tests also would be expensive, Crook noted, and she's pessimistic about the prospects for changing the law.

But if such efforts did gain momentum, such as a full bill about native language testing introduced by Ott in March, she thinks the door toward more bilingual education could "crack open just a little bit more."

Former reporter April Santana contributed to this article.

Reach Ian Grenier at 803-968-1951. Follow him on X @IanGrenier1.