The U.S. Department of Education, which is in a tug-of-war with several Virginia superintendents who are protesting a federal mandate to change how their school districts test beginning English-language learners, met with those chiefs on April 13 to discuss the impasse. Maria Glod, of the Washington Post, reported in an April 14 article that a solution wasn’t reached. The Virginia superintendents and school boards resisting the mandate will have to decide soon what they will do for the spring testing season. Paul Regnier, a spokesman for Fairfax County schools, which could lose $17 million in federal funds if it disregards the requirement, has told me that testing in that school system begins in May.
See my earlier posts about this topic: “Bill About Testing ELLs Is Introduced in the U.S. Congress,” “Virginia Backs Down on Testing Showdown,” and “Testing Showdown.”