Thread: TX: Bilingual Ed. News

Judge: Texas bilingual programs comply with law

04:17 PM CDT on Monday, July 30, 2007
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
tstutz@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – A federal judge has affirmed Texas’ bilingual education programs for its 712,000 students with limited English skills, rejecting arguments by leading Hispanic groups that those students are receiving an inferior education in the public schools.

U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice ruled Monday that the state’s programs for limited-English students comply with federal law and actually are achieving some success for children in elementary grades.

State and legislative leaders had worried that an adverse ruling from the federal judge could force the state to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on instruction for limited-English students. The ruling basically allows the public schools to keep educating those students in the same way.

Problems for Hispanic high school students – including low test scores and high dropout rates – cannot be directly linked to the state’s bilingual and English as a Second Language programs, the judge said in 34-page opinion outlining his ruling.

“The court concludes that the Texas Education Agency’s education theory is sound, and its implementation and enforcement of the bilingual/ESL program is adequate under federal law,â€

Most of these classes are pathetic!! Many of those classes are taught like 1st-2nd grade classes, and these are 7th-8th graders. You would never know that some of these kids are little anchors, other than their non-use of English outside of the classroom.