Arizona: English-Language Learner Case Framed as Civil Rights Enforcement Issue Before Supreme Court

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu 
 

English-Language Learner Case Framed as Civil Rights Enforcement Issue
Before Supreme Court

by Karen Branch-Brioso
Apr 20, 2009, 08:40

At a time when children with limited English skills are among the
fastest-growing groups in public schools, the U.S. Supreme Court today
will hear a case that could greatly impact the way states educate
English-language learners. On one side: Arizona's top education
official and legislative leaders. They want federal courts to release
them from a 2000 consent decree that said their English-language
learner (ELL) programs violated ELL students' civil right to an equal
education - because they were so underfunded they couldn't effectively
teach the students English or other subjects. They say Arizona has
greatly improved its ELL programs, particularly in the Nogales
district along the U.S.-Mexico border where the lawsuit got its start.

On the other: Miriam Flores, a Nogales mother who joined the suit in
1996 after her daughter's grades dropped in the third grade, when
bilingual classes shifted to English-only. Her daughter, also Miriam,
is 22 now - far beyond the reach of the decision to be made by the
Supreme Court justices.  Still, the elder Flores said in an interview
in Spanish, "I'm nervous because it's something so much bigger now."
If the stack of briefs filed in the Supreme Court is an indicator, the
case indeed is far more significant today.


Full story:
http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_12498.shtml



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