Fairfax Resists 'No Child' Provision

Fairfax Resists 'No Child' Provision
Immigrants' Tests In English at Issue

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; Page B01

The Fairfax County School Board last night defied the U.S. Department of Education -- and challenged the No Child Left Behind Act -- by declining to force thousands of immigrant students to take a federally mandated test because local educators think it is unfair.

Fairfax school officials said they will continue to test how well those students are learning to read, speak and write English and will report those results. But this year they will not, as the federal government requires, give the students reading exams that cover the same grade-level material as tests taken by peers who are native-English speakers.

"It is wrong for our students to take a test they are predisposed to fail," said board member Phillip A. Niedzielski-Eichner (Providence). "We will continue to test their proficiency twice a year and continue to move them forward as quickly as possible. This resolution is not, by any stretch, an attempt to shy away from accountability."

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"This will help build political pressure to find a sensible solution where you keep accountability, but you test kids fairly," said John F. Jennings, president and chief executive of the District-based Center on Education Policy. "Schools are saying it makes no sense to test kids who don't understand English. The U.S. Department of Education is saying that they should be tested the same way as other students. There has to be a third way."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502327.html

Our public school system tried to fight the provision where special needs kids are tested in the same way as mainstream kids. The school system lost in court.

It's such a stupid law!

these cases so far.

NCLB is a farce and needs to be abolished.

on both counts.

Best of luck, Fairfax!

Hopefully Montgomery & Prince George's Counties, MD are not that far behind. Inside the Beltwayer's know what is at stake. How can the NCLB be fair to people for that English is a second language for them.

I for one know, I went to Northern VA Community College in Annandale, VA for a while and most of the students are foreign born.

We need to embrace immigrants, as we were once immigrants ourselves (doesn't matter about generations), unless you are 100% Native American from the province known as the USA. If that is the case, we would not be speaking English.

Immigrants and slaves made this nation, not white people.

My ancestry is:
American Indian
German
French
Scottish
Irish
English

:)

be forced to take a test in English?