Thread: AZ: Court to weigh state's duty to English learners

Court to weigh state's duty to English learners


By JOAN LOWY
Associated Press
Mon Apr 20, 4:33 am ET


WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday takes up an Arizona case that could limit a federal court's power to tell states to spend more money to educate students who aren't proficient in English.

Arizona state legislators and the state superintendent of public instruction want to be freed from federal court oversight of the state's programs for English learners. They've been ordered by a lower court judge to spend potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with rulings in a 17-year-old case.

Parents of students attending southern Arizona's Nogales Unified School District sued the state in 1992, contending programs for English-language learners in Nogales were deficient and received inadequate funding from the state.

In 2000, a federal judge found that the state had violated the Equal Educational Opportunities Act's requirements for appropriate instruction for English-language learners. He ordered state legislators to create a plan to provide sufficient funds and placed the state's programs for non-English speaking students under court oversight.

Since then, the two sides have fought over what constitutes compliance with the order. Arizona has more than doubled the amount that schools receive per non-English speaking student and taken several other steps prescribed by the No Child Left Behind Act, a broader education accountability law passed by Congress in 2002.

Plaintiffs say that's not enough to comply with federal law and a judge agreed. But the state appealed, and now the high court will answer the question.

Another key issue is the power of federal courts to take over functions of state or local governments when trying to remedy civil rights violations, attorneys involved in the case said.

The case has attracted a flurry of legal briefs from school boards, teachers and civil rights groups in support of the Nogales parents and students. Supporters of the legislators and the superintendent of schools also filed numerous briefs.

The lead plaintiff in the case, now called Horne v Flores, was Miriam Flores. She said her daughter had two years of instruction in her native Spanish, then was put into an English-language class in third grade. The daughter — also named Miriam Flores — began to fall behind. There were complaints she was a behavior problem, talking in class. It turned out she couldn't understand what the teacher was saying and was asking a classmate for help.

Since the case was filed in 1992, a generation of Spanish-speaking students has passed through Nogales and other Arizona public schools, and Mrs. Flores' daughter is now a student at the University of Arizona.

news.yahoo.com

Anchors and/or straight out illegals should not be getting education and/or any other benefits in our country, period. So they have no right to complain about our schools not accomodating their children.

And the illegal students are and have messed up Americans getting into preferred colleges due to Class Ranking.

Exactly! Tell their parents to pack them up and get them out of here.

It turned out she couldn't understand what the teacher was saying

Unfortunately, since our laws are completely ignored, illegal immigrants have been allowed to abandon all prerequisite requirements to learn English before entering this country, or else this wouldn't be a problem.

Why was this illegal student in the US? No free lunch unless the parents are E-Verified.

The lead plaintiff in the case, now called Horne v Flores, was Miriam Flores. She said her daughter had two years of instruction in her native Spanish, then was put into an English-language class in third grade. The daughter — also named Miriam Flores — began to fall behind. There were complaints she was a behavior problem, talking in class. It turned out she couldn't understand what the teacher was saying and was asking a classmate for help.

That was the first mistake. I am not aware of any classes anywhere in any public school system in the US that is taught in non-english languages, except spanish. Why is it that we hear of so many failures of kids being taught in spanish, but not other ethnic groups taught in English? The perception here is that spanish speaking students are of low intelligence and lazy. What ticks me off is that there are people (advocates) who insist on pushing this mantra.

Those two years wasted in teaching her in Spanish, should have been spent teaching her English. There is NO excuse for this!

What about the school systems that teaches alternate day in English/Spainish in North Carolina?

That was the first mistake. I am not aware of any classes anywhere in any public school system in the US that is taught in non-english languages, except spanish. Why is it that we hear of so many failures of kids being taught in spanish, but not other ethnic groups taught in English? The perception here is that spanish speaking students are of low intelligence and lazy. What ticks me off is that there are people (advocates) who insist on pushing this mantra.

Those two years wasted in teaching her in Spanish, should have been spent teaching her English. There is NO excuse for this!

Exactly.


I am anxious to see how the Supreme court rules on this. This mandate that states comply is an excessive burden on the citizens of this country and takes away from our own childrens education. If it actually worked, there might be something to say about it. But it doesn't. We are not a bi-lingual nation, and it's not right that all this extra funding goes to one group and not others facing the same issues. And especially un-fair that it be at the loss of programs for our own children.

I do not understand why our children have to be practiced on with some of the un-proven methods of teaching. I was the generation lost with their "new math" experiment. My kids were lost for awhile with their "writing to read" program, and they wonder why they can't read or spell worth a darn. How can you teach English without phonics? They've been at this bi-lingual fiasco for atleast a couple of decades, and it doesn't work. Or we'd be seeing people that have been here 40 years, speaking English, we wouldn't need bi-lingual signs, or bi-lingual voting ballots or all this added expense. I understand issues for adult, but not when kids "graduate" and still need a translator. An English speaking American can fail if they don't pass English classes, so how are they not held back till they do? An English speaking person can fail a foreign language class if they don't meet certain criteria, why aren't they?

What about the school systems that teaches alternate day in English/Spainish in North Carolina?

That's bull. Did anyone vote on this? Maybe my kid would rather speak the language of their ancestors. You know, preserve "their culture".