June 20, 2004 in City

School board OKs English standards

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MOSCOW, Idaho – The State Board of Education has unanimously approved school standards for students who have limited English skills.

“It’s important for us to have a uniform set of goals,” Chairman Rod Lewis said Friday. “It indicates that we’re making good progress in trying to reach our goal of improving the academic achievement of all our students.”

The standards, which cover speaking, listening, reading and writing, are meant to ensure that students with limited English proficiency – often called LEP students – show improvement in their studies. The students, mostly Hispanic, score well below classmates in achievement tests such as those required under the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind act.

Schools that do not show acceptable progress under the No Child Left Behind standards can face sanctions including losing federal funding. Idaho will soon require all students to pass a standardized test before they graduate from high school.

The new language improvement standards take effect next school year.

State Superintendent Marilyn Howard said setting standards would help schools refine their efforts to reach out to students who are struggling with English.

“It provides a way to make sure we’re focusing on LEP students,” she said. “It also provides steps of achievement appropriate for students who are just learning English.”

The standards were endorsed earlier in the week by a committee of teachers, parents, business owners, lawmakers and state board members.

“We’ve been pushing for standards for a number of years,” said Sam Byrd, a minority-student advocate who attended the committee meeting. “We applaud it.”

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