Complaint withdrawn over ESL instruction

A community advocate on Tuesday withdrew a federal complaint claiming the State Office of Education was about to shortchange students learning English as a second language.

Michael Clara said the state office now is agreeing to ax a proposed "Reading for English Language Learners" endorsement from a plan aimed at improving education for those students.

The so-called R-ELL endorsement was opposed by two committees helping piece together the state's plan, as well as the Coalition of Minorities Advisory Committee to the State Board of Education.

"I think we're just back to where we should have been in the beginning," Clara said.

Clara filed a complaint June 29 with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights in Denver. The complaint alleges the state's move to give kindergarten through third-grade teachers a shortcut to ELL endorsement by lumping it with a reading endorsement dumbs down the credential and would shortchange students.

The State Office of Education since agreed to postpone an August Board of Education discussion on the issue, reconvene the ELL master plan committee and rewrite the offending section as a group, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington said.

"I think we at least respected we had some negative feedback on that, and moving it forward without respecting that was a wrong move," she said.