Virginia Democrat Wants SOLs Offered In Foreign Languages

Hey Virginians, remember that $1.2 billion surplus in the state budget that Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been trying to return to taxpayers?

Unsurprisingly, Democrats in Richmond are finding ways to spend it. All of it.

Take State Sen. Barbara Favola, for instance. Please.

She’s introduced SB753, a measure guaranteed to cost a bundle.

The bill would require Virginia to administer the statewide standardized tests known as SOLs in languages other than English, despite the fact the ENGLISH is the official language of the commonwealth.

“Requires (i) the Board of Education to develop Standards of Learning assessments in native languages other than English that are most commonly spoken in the Commonwealth; (ii) each school board to make available any such native language assessment to any English language learner student who speaks any such language natively and is identified as having limited English proficiency; (iii) the English language learner faculty at any such student's school to make the final determination as to whether administration of any such native language assessment is appropriate; and (iv) the provisions of the bill to be implemented by the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year. Finally, the bill directs the Department of Education to submit to the U.S. Department of Education by August 1, 2025 any amendments to its consolidated plan under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act, that are necessary to implement its provisions.”

Good Lord. Do you suppose the Democrat from Arlington knows just how many languages are spoken by students in Virginia schools?

I do.

According to the Virginia Department of Education there are 117,000 students enrolled in English as a Second Language programs in public schools. There is no data on how many of these students are in the country illegally.

Sitting down?

These students speak 240 different languages.

Those languages range from Afrikaans to Arabic to Icelandic to Korean to Tagalog to Vietnamese. Where would Favola draw the line?

Frankly, the number one goal of public schools ought to be to bring all students to fluency in English as quickly as possible.

Offering proficiency tests in foreign languages defeats that purpose.

The cost of this squishy, feel-good piece of legislation will eventually be calculated  by non-partisan number crunchers in the General Assembly.

Hopefully, that will be the end of it. Until next year.