ELL Groups Criticize New Mexico's NCLB Waiver Application

Lesli Maxwell writes at the Education Week (12/14) "Learning the Language" blog about the implications for ELL students to be gleaned from the applications that have been sent in by 11 states for NCLB waivers, noting that many of them "would move away from focusing on English learners as a stand-alone subgroup, (along with the other traditional subgroups) by folding them into a 'super' subgroup, or lowest performing 25 percent, for example." She notes that despite its heavy ELL population, New Mexico's application had "only a few references" to this group, noting that an "observer suggests it's connected to the state's outreach efforts as it crafted the waiver application, which really irked groups that advocate for ELLs-so much so that several of them sent a letter to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urging him to reject the state's proposal because it did not meet the department's requirement for engaging in meaningful consultation with stakeholder groups."