State news of national interest

By The Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:07 a.m. September 26, 2008

BOSTON – A decision by an arbitrator to reinstate three Lowell public school teachers who failed English fluency tests was upheld by the state Appeals Court. The middle school science and math teachers were fired in 2003 after passage of a ballot question that required teachers to be fluent and literate in English. Their lawyers argued that the law did not properly define “fluency.â€