Governor Scott joins education officials in face-off with the Department of Education.
Florida is facing off against the Department of Education over a denied request for giving English language learners (ELLs) two years in public schools before their assessment scores factored into school grades. While Arne Duncan’s office approved Florida’s waiver extension for some parts of No Child Left Behind, they refused the testing timeline that Florida proposed, stating in a letter, “Current law requires assessing all students in tested grades and including their results in accountability determinations in order to ensure that teachers and parents of ELs have information on students’ progress and that schools are held accountable for the academic achievement of ELs.”