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Having been the parent of a Virginia public school student, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is aware of the achievement of students under the commonwealth's Standards of Learning reform, which predates the signing of the federal No Child Left Behind Act by seven years.
Experience has taught Virginia how to make standards work for all children, including children learning English.
Ms. Spellings's comments in her Feb. 4 Close to Home article, "Virginia, Standards Are Long Overdue," obscured the fact that the current disagreement between the commonwealth and the U.S. Education Department is about how to assess children at the lowest levels of English proficiency, approximately 13 percent of Virginia's 78,000 English language learners.
Ms. Spellings stated that "to help students achieve, we must first know how they're doing." Ironically, the assessment that she finds objectionable was designed to identify the instructional needs of students with little command of English (and in many cases, of their native languages), while also holding schools accountable for increasing reading achievement.
Although Ms. Spellings said she is committed to helping Virginia fairly assess these students, there is nothing fair about forcing them to take tests they can barely read -- even with bilingual dictionaries.
Virginia makes no apologies for its opposition to this absurd directive.
MARK E. EMBLIDGE
President
Virginia Board of Education
Richmond
