Teenagers from Uzbekistan, Korea and Egypt huddled one recent morning in a Fairfax County classroom, studying English words on slips of paper. Dozens were familiar, but not "bitter," "nibble" or "wicked." Felobateer Hana, 13, held up another. An animated movie character came to mind: "Shrek?"
"That's a good guess, but Shrek doesn't have an 'i' in it," said teacher Karyn Niles at Liberty Middle School in Clifton. "This is 'shriek.' Shriek is kind of like yelling."
Students such as Felobateer and his eighth-grade classmates, all recent immigrants who are learning English as a second language, are at the center of an intensifying dispute between Virginia schools and the U.S. Department of Education over testing requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Fairfax County school officials are protesting a federal mandate to give most English learners reading tests that mirror those taken by their native-speaking peers. Tonight, the school system is taking a major step toward challenging that mandate and the federal law.
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