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Feds offer states flexibility in testing limited-English students

WASHINGTON - The Education Department gave states final permission Wednesday to leave out the test scores of newly enrolled, limited-English kids when grading schools. The goal is to give schools extra time to work with limited-English students before being held accountable for their yearly progress. Schools welcome the offer because it helps them meet their goals - and avoid penalties - under the No Child Left Behind law. The policy applies only to students who have been in a U.S. school for less than a year. States may exempt their math and reading scores when measuring yearly progress. 

Though freshly repackaged, the flexibility is not new. States have been allowed to exempt test scores on a case-by-case basis since 2004, when former Education Secretary Rod Paige announced the draft policy. Forty of them now do it.

The final version, announced Wednesday by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, opens the offer to all states. It also adds language to ensure that students learning English aren't ignored. "We recognize that there are legitimate issues when students move to this country not speaking English," Spellings said. "They do need to have some sort of adequate time to get up to speed." Spellings spoke about the policy to reporters before announcing it at a conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Washington.

Roughly 5.4 million public school students are learning English as a second language.
Under the plan, newly enrolled students must take their state test in math, but not in reading, in the first year. In both subjects, their scores may be exempted for that year, and states must disclose to the public how many children have been left out of the reading test. The new rule also makes clear that schools should not try to turn it into a free pass. They must still help limited-English students master English language and content.

Spellings' announcement finalizes one other change that's proved popular with states. Schools can consider students as "limited-English students" - and include them in progress reports that way - up to two years after these children have proven they know the language. Schools campaigned for that. Principals say they could never show yearly progress for their group of limited-English kids if they couldn't include the ones who had succeeded.

Paige first offered that policy in 2004, too, and 40 states have been using it since.
Meanwhile, the Education Department is experimenting with about 20 states on different ways to test limited-English children, hoping to come up with good ideas for the nation.