Proposed ELL Guidelines Criticized as Too Rigid

By Mary Ann Zehr

Education officials in several states with large English-language-learner populations are bristling at a proposal by the U.S. Department of Education that they say would curb their flexibility in deciding when children are fluent in English and if they still need special services for ells.

The comment period closed June 2 on the proposed “interpretation” of Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act, the main conduit of federal funds for English-language-acquisition programs, generating a two-inch stack of responses to the proposal published in the Federal Register on May 2. ("Consistent ELL Guides Proposed," May 14, 2006.)

The responses include critical or skeptical comments from officials in states with some of the largest populations of English-learners, particularly California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas.

Education Department officials have said that a goal of the proposed interpretation is to create more consistency in how the federal education law is implemented for English-language learners. If made final as now written, the guidance is intended to reduce some variations among states, and among school districts within states in how they report the progress of students in learning English.

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