Spellings Takes a Stand on Abusive Immigrant Tests

Margaret Spellings is showing herself as a tinhorn with a tin ear and a tin-plated policy to go with it. Not only has she replaced the bigotry of low expectations with the racism of impossible standardized testing demands, but she is now trying to shove around Fairfax County officials for finally doing what an ethical commitment to child welfare has demanded ever since we decided in the 1930s that it was inhumane to to give children IQ tests in a language they could not understand or read. From WaPo:

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors sided with school officials yesterday in a showdown with the Bush administration over the federal No Child Left Behind law, accusing the U.S. Department of Education of having a "tin ear" in its policy toward testing immigrant students.

Supervisors voted 8 to 1 to endorse the School Board's decision last month to defy a Bush administration directive to give certain students still learning English reading exams that cover the same grade-level material as those taken by their peers who are native speakers. Instead, the school system will continue to use tests it says are better tailored to those learning English as a second language. . . .