Dive Brief:
- Florida Governor Rick Scott is petitioning U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for a hearing on the state's denied request for flexibility around the test scores of students learning English.
- While Florida received a No Child Left Behind waiver in August, it did not get approval for a plan requesting leeway for teachers of English Language Learners. Specifically, the state asked that test scores of those students not be tied to teachers' evaluations until the students have had at least two years of instruction in English.
- Florida has over 265,000 students who would fall under the ELL description.
Dive Insight:
According to the The Daytona Beach News Journal, Scott wrote a letter to Duncan asking for an administrative judge to hear the case. While test-based accountability of teachers is already a hot topic, add in the fact that some students are struggling to read the test because of language barriers and it gets more complicate. While Florida clearly has one of the highest numbers of ELL populations in the country, this issue is not unique to the Sunshine state. Perhaps coming up with a plan for all states would be a wise.