Giving Compass' Take:

• Kobe Levin reports that Michigan has asked that refugee students, who are often still learning English, be excused from testing in English. 

• How can schools best support refugee students, particularly those who do not speak English? 

• Learn how language apps can help refugees survive and thrive in new places. 

To teachers who work with recently arrived refugee students, the problem is clear: Although their students will eventually learn English, their language skills at first aren’t comparable to those of native speakers.

They’re hoping federal education officials will come to the same conclusion after reading the state’s detail-rich request to delay testing new immigrant children in English.

Michigan is the second state to ask for a waiver from a federal law that requires children who arrived in the U.S. this year to take standardized English tests a year after arriving — even if they’re just being introduced to the language. The law also requires states to count such students’ scores in decisions about whether to close low-performing schools.

“We wanted to balance between presenting hard data and some anecdotes,” said Chris Janzer, assistant director of accountability at the Michigan Department of Education. “We’re hoping that the case we present, with some of the stories, will win us approval.”

Read the full article about testing refugee students by Kobe Levin at Chalkbeat.