PHOENIX — An attorney seeking more funds to help students learn English charges that a program designed to teach them is illegal.
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“For elementary school students, the harmful and pernicious effects of such segregation can be permanent and irreversible,’’ Hogan wrote in his legal filing. And he said high schoolers who are kept in those programs for more than a year are in danger of not having enough time for other courses to allow them to graduate.
State School Superintendent Tom Horne, however, said the law does allow for such segregated educational programs for a “limited time.’’
He noted that Hogan, while questioning the legality of any segregation, said he was willing to give the immersion program a chance to work for up to a year. Horne said his goal is to have students be proficient within that time, though he acknowledged that for some it does take longer.
Horne also said the evidence shows the immersion program works, saying that the number of students being reclassified as proficient is 30 percent higher than before it was implemented.
“The four-hour model has made us one of the leaders in the area of teaching English,’’ he said.
Hogan, however, was skeptical of those results which he said reflects only a single academic year. And he said there is no data yet on how many of those students will remain “proficient.’’
The charges are part of Hogan’s arguments that evidence remains that Arizona still has not complied with a 2000 ruling by a federal judge that the state must do more to ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn. Hogan wants to be able to present that evidence to U.S. District Court Raner Collins.
The new move comes more than three months after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out rulings by Collins and a federal appellate court ordering Arizona to do more — and possibly spend a lot more — on its programs to teach English to students who come to school speaking another language.
Hogan, in Wednesday’s court filing, pointed out that the high court did not rule that Arizona is, in fact, complying with the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act. That law requires states to ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn, an opportunity which specifically requires states to take “appropriate action’’ to help students become proficient in English.
Instead, the justices simply ruled that the lower courts had not properly considered the evidence of what has been done in the Nogales Unified School District. That is the district first named as a defendant in the lawsuit, first filed in 1992.
That means a new hearing on whether Nogales is now complying with the law and the 2000 judgment and subsequent orders to spend more money should be upheld.
Comments
Wise Gringo wrote on Oct 13, 2009 2:49 PM:
As an EFL and ESL teacher of many years (in both the US and in Mexico), it is appropriate for me to mention that there are many Mexicans who live and work in Mexico (AP included!) and learned to speak English there - not in the US. There is absolutely no good reason that non-English speaking students in this country should not be included in some sort of English immersion program for a couple of semesters. If by then they still haven't improved, I can attest to one fact: they never tried. Probably better to have them return to their homeland. It was American, not Mexican, tax dollars that were used to help them.
So, latinos - learn your English! "
Observer wrote on Oct 12, 2009 4:01 PM:
m wrote on Oct 9, 2009 12:41 PM:
Scott Connuck wrote on Oct 7, 2009 9:15 PM: