Arizona's ELL Programs May Violate Federal Civil Rights

Thursday, September 9, 2010
Federal civil rights officials from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights have identified two practices that Arizona uses to identify students that require English Language Learner (ELL) services. The practices in question are the surveys schools and districts give to parents to initially identify students to be tested for ELL services and the process the state uses to reclassify ELL's as fluent in English even if they don’t pass all sections of the state’s English-language-proficiency test.

John A. Stollar Jr., a former deputy associate state superintendent of English language acquisition services for the state spent an entire day on the stand defending Arizona's ELL program in federal court last week.

The outcome of the case may implications outside of Arizona as some states have ELL identification and testing policies similar to Arizona's. 

It seems as though Arizona not only wants to keep Latinos out of Arizona it also doesn't want to educate them.
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