The North Carolina state Board of Education has been exploring how it identifies and classifies students who are English learners. On Thursday, they approved several changes making it easier for those students to move out of that classification.
North Carolina students learning English are regularly tested on their ability to read, write, speak and listen to the language.
Prior to this school year, they would no longer be considered English learners if they scored at least a 4.8 out of 6 on those assessments. But the state Board of Education on Thursday lowered that score to 4.5.
Back in November, Kristi Day, the state’s director of academic standards, told the board they’d heard from schools about frustrated students who were struggling to meet that 4.8 — even as they were otherwise excelling in their day-to-day academics.
“We hear that very often, that students are doing very well, they may be taking AP courses or honors courses and they’re able to access that grade-level content, they just have trouble on that assessment," Day told the board.
As the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction develops the standards for an all-new assessment, it’s exploring using other indicators — beyond a single test score — to assess whether a student is ready to exit English learner status.
The board approved other changes to the English learner process, including requiring a standardized statewide screening survey. Currently, each public school system develops its own.
There are nearly 180,000 English learners in North Carolina schools reflecting an increase of nearly 16,000 in the last year, according to a new headcount from the state Board of Education.
