Federal court orders Texas to improve ELL programs
According to Education Week, a U.S. district court in Texas has reversed its 2007 ruling that Texas was adequately educating its English language learners (ELL). The court’s latest ruling orders the state to revamp its ELL programs for grades 7-12 and improve monitoring of ELL programs for all grades by the 2009-10 school year. The order in the long-running case of U.S. v. Texas has drawn praise from ELL advocates, who hope it will spur improvement of the quality of education for English-language learners in middle and high schools across the nation. The court concluded that secondary education programs for ELLs violate the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 and has given the state until Jan. 31, 2009, to devise a plan to revamp secondary education programs and the monitoring system for all grades. The court reversed its earlier decision after the plaintiffs asked it to take a closer look at achievement levels ELL students in secondary schools.
In response to the ruling, the Texas Education Agency said, “We’re disappointed that Judge Justice reversed the original order he issued in this case a year ago. We’re continuing to study this latest ruling, but it is likely that we will ask the attorney general to appeal it.” The court had harsh criticism for the quality of the state’s ELL services, saying: “After a quarter century of sputtering implementation, defendants have failed to achieve results that demonstrate they are overcoming language barriers for secondary [limited-English-proficient] students.” It ordered Texas to revamp how schools instruct such students because secondary ELLs are doing so poorly in school according to a number of measures—including their scores on state tests and retention rates. The ruling also said that almost all of the 140,000 English-learners in grades 7-12 receive English as a second language (ESL) instruction instead of bilingual instruction. It concluded that the degree of limited-English-proficient students in secondary schools “further indicates that the change from bilingual education to ESL education [between the elementary and secondary levels] is the primary culprit.” However, the court also said that one option for Texas may be to continue with “a variation of the ESL program with substantially enhanced remedial education.” According to Roger L. Rice, a lawyer and the executive director of the Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy, the ruling sends the message to education officials in Texas and elsewhere that the requirement of federal law “is that these kids ... have to do as well as native-English speakers ultimately.” He added, “It’s not enough that you are making a little progress but most are dropping out. It’s not enough to have a minimal closing of gaps but there are still huge gaps.”
Source: Education Week, 7/29/08, By Mary Ann Zehr
[Editor’s Note: The opinion is available below. For more reactions, see the first Dallas Morning News article below. A report by the same publication on the 2007 ruling is at the next link. Information on legal and political disputes over ELL programs in Oregon and Arizona is available starting at the last link.]
U.S. v. Texas, 71-5281 (E.D. Tex. July 24, 2008)
Dallas Morning News, 7/27/08, By Michael E. Young
Dallas Morning News, 7/31/07, By Terrence Stutz
NSBA School Law pages on ELL controversies