Feds say CPS lets down kids learning English
COURT FILING | Cite failure to provide services in native language

February 22, 2008
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter/rrossi@suntimes.com
Thousands of kids who are still learning English have been shortchanged in Chicago public school classrooms and CPS has "stymied'' federal efforts to check up on them, federal attorneys contend in a massive new court filing.

In a blizzard of documents, including 25 written exhibits, attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department take CPS to task in the latest battle involving the school system's 1980 desegregation consent decree.

Thousands of pages of documents have been filed since January 2003, when U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras caught attorneys off guard by calling the system's consent decree "passe'' and challenging attorneys to "tell me why this case should stay alive.''

CPS officials have indicated in court that they want to dump the decree, best known for creating the system's hugely popular magnet schools. Federal attorneys have balked at the idea, saying CPS has not been fully complying with the agreement.

On Feb. 16, the Department of Justice unleashed its biggest filing to date -- a motion and hundreds of pages of exhibits accusing CPS of violating agreements involving "English Language Learners'' who must receive certain services in their native language under the decree.

The latest motion contends that last school year, close to 3,000 children who were still learning English did not receive required services, or were given inadequate or untimely service. CPS has been aware of the problem since a 2002 analysis, but since then, the number of such children has grown, the motion contends.

In addition, the motion said, "Determining the full extent of CPS' violations has been difficult'' because CPS' last major report on the issue contained "inaccurate data'' that "masked the extent of its failures to serve large numbers'' of English Language Learners.

Federal attorneys also contended that CPS "stymied'' federal efforts to monitor services for English Language Learners during on-site visits by refusing to let school staff look up or share requested data and by barring federal attorneys from asking school staff questions.

Their motion asks CPS to provide accurate data in its next report, due in March, to document how it plans to comply with requirements for English Language Learners and to cooperate more fully during federal on-site visits.

"We absolutely are not stymying any Department of Justice visits,'' CPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said Thursday. "That's nonsense.

"We're working very hard to give all our ELL students the best services we possibly can and we think we're doing a very good job of that."

A CPS response is due March 13.


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