Groups Say ELLs Got Short Shrift in Race to the Top

Federal officials promise to do better when they provide technical assistance to states

Three civil rights groups contend the U.S. Department of Education failed to give adequate attention to the needs of English-language learners in the $3.4 billion Race to the Top state grant competition and say they plan to hold federal education officials accountable for promises they will give them more attention in the future.

“The applications [for winners] rarely mentioned English-language learners, except in passing and rarely fleshed out any thought to how they were going to close the achievement gap for ELLs,” said Roger L. Rice, the executive director of Multicultural Education, Training and Advocacy of Somerville, Mass., in an interview last week.

In a Sept. 15 meeting with high-level Education Department officials, Mr. Rice said he argued that reviewers for the state applications for Race to the Top didn’t adequately consider the needs of ELLs in two regards: They didn’t pay attention to whether states had narrowed achievement gaps between ELLs and non-ELLs and they didn’t consistently examine whether states had buy-in from ELL advocacy or Hispanic advocacy...