New Policies for English Language Learners

Schools are implementing new policies for English Language Learners in an attempt to allow them to fully develop their skills before being included in the accountability statistics from test scores.

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In Florida, the Department of Education currently allows one year before English Language Learners’ test scores are counted toward school grades and teacher evaluations. The Florida Legislature recently granted an additional year. All ELL students will be counted in the state’s learning gains measurements, regardless of how long they have been studying the language.

English Language Learners have to take the same standardized tests as other students, said Natasa Karac, a English for Speakers of Other Languages specialist, a requirement that’s “very challenging.”

“This is going to be a very positive thing,” Pinellas County school board member Linda Lerner said. “Language is one issue, but the other is that some students have had a very sporadic education and some may be in seventh grade and they’ve only gone to school two years on a regular basis.”

Under state law, ELL students have to take the standardized reading tests unless they have been in the country less than one year and a majority of the student’s ELL committee determines an exemption is appropriate. However, even exempt ELL students have to take the state’s Comprehensive English Language Learning Assessment, and the writing, math and science standardized tests, no matter how long they have received ELL instruction, said Cheryl Etters, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education.

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There are few students in the district who haven’t received a consistent education in some language, Karac said. However, the more than 6,000 Pinellas students in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program speak more than 90 different languages. A study by the University of South Florida in 2002 found that most of the Mexican students in Pinellas, particularly Clearwater, come from the Mexican state of Hidalgo and speak an indigenous language. Spanish is not their first language, and many scored higher on English proficiency tests than on Spanish.