Feds Find Arizona Violates Civil Rights Of English Learners

PHOENIX -- Federal officials have concluded that Arizona is violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act by shortchanging thousands of students whose first language is not English -- and unless changes are made, the state could lose federal education funding.

The Arizona Republic reports that one complaint alleges the Arizona Department of Education has reclassified "many thousands" of children as proficient in English even though tests indicate they aren't.

The second complaint says the state eliminated two questions from its home-language survey in 2009. The result was that students who are eligible for special English-language services "are not being served because they are not being identified."

The Arizona Department of Education is also under investigation for supposed discrimination against teachers who are not native English speakers.

According to the Arizona Republic:

Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction, said Thursday that the state Department of Education is working with federal investigators on the home-language survey.

"We're not going to change it back, but we're negotiating with them," he said. "We won't change it back, but we might make changes that will satisfy their needs and our needs."

Comments

[redstateblues69]

02:06 AM on 11/07/2010

In the old days the teachers would pull students out of class by their ears if they spoke Spanish. In La French speaking students would wet their pants if they couldn't ask to go to the can in English. They learned English the old fashioned way.

Why is it that our foreign exchange students receive no language instruction and still do fine?

[Max is Back]

09:23 AM on 09/27/2010

This is what the Teabagliklans mean when they talk about "State's Rights". They feel enttled to violate the rights of non whites as their entire political ideology is solidly based on the concept of white supremacy. The Constitution and Civil Rights laws that protect the equality of citizens is an affront to republiklan values as they trully belkieve that it is their god given right to establish a race based caste system wherever they can.

Jan "The Cryptkeeper" Brewer and her National socialist Movement buddy Russell Pearce have made the fact that they are carrying out a race based progrom against latinos public knowledge by attacking ethnic studies courses in college among other issues where they seek to criminalize anything having to do with latinos in their drive to turn Arizona into Aryanzona....

[AKansan]

12:17 AM on 09/14/2010

We're not talking about a few people or a few students. The problem has become epidemic in the US and we cannot afford to educate the world's poor while US citizens are sinking into poverty daily. An exert from a NY Times articled...

But they often find that it fails to live up to the stories told by friends and relatives who are eager to appear as big shots with their success in the United States.

Jobs are few, rents are high, and unfamiliar laws are stringently enforced. Crime is also high, with much of it related to the neighborhood’s homegrown Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, a gang formed by Salvadoran immigrants in the 1980s that has become one of the most vicious in the nation.

Particularly vulnerable are campesinos, subsistence farmers from the indigenous communities of rural Mexico and Guatemala who are often far less prepared to cope than other immigrants.

Many have only a few years of formal schooling and may barely be able to read and write. Some speak little Spanish, having grown up in isolated areas where native indigenous languages are mainly spoken.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/books/excerpt-backlash.html?pagewanted=2&tntemail0=y&_r=1&emc=tnt

[Ramirez]

10:38 AM on 09/13/2010

The Obama administration is at war with the state of AZ.

[AKansan]

12:10 AM on 09/14/2010

Aren't they though....and how sad it is. I am opposed to illegal aliens in our country. I live in a college town and many, many of our citizens were immigrants who came on lega visa's, stayed the course, and are now citizens. It can be done. Our real estate market has remained steady and we're still building new construction. Since Arizona passed SB 1070 we have had a flood of illegal aliens into our town and into our building trades. Locals are losing business to companies who are employing illegal aliens and paying them less (under the table).

[glockman]

07:52 AM on 09/13/2010

Public schools, the best prison system money can buy...

[Leviathan21]

01:12 AM on 09/13/2010

The person most desperately in need of English lessons in Arizona is one Jan Brewer, who was recently heard saying, "We have did everything that we could possibly do." 

[noodlen11]

01:09 AM on 09/13/2010

can you say witch hunt. I guarantee California and nevada would be in violation too

[FdeBear]

12:20 AM on 09/13/2010

Life in the Arid Zone. What a sad redneck state of affairs.

[manyamile]

11:46 PM on 09/12/2010

a big step forward come November, would be to elect Democratic candidate Penny Kotterman to head up the AZ dept of Education.
another step is to elect Terry Goddard to replace Brewer as governor.
Two big steps forward.
get AZ off the hillbilly crack.
vote for sane candidates and policies this fall.

[Edward Standley]

11:07 PM on 09/12/2010

UnFRIGGIN'believable! H8TERS, you know who you are. PROUD?

[poeticjustice4all]

10:40 PM on 09/12/2010

Our education system is mandated to foster authentic learning that addresses the whole child.

A learner's culture, language and learning style are not blocks to growth -- they are the bridges to learning.

We have entered a new era of accountability in education. EVERY child will receive the best possible education, regardless of race, home-language, socio-economic status or developmental ability.

This isn't up for debate by cranks on the internet.

This is the law.

[realitytrumpsbull]

11:01 PM on 09/12/2010

What kind of dope are YOU smoking? School is school, you've got teachers punching the clock, students that would just as soon be outside, throwing the baseball around, or letting the air out of the principal's tires, or doing SOMETHING else besides sitting in that classroom, and you can dress the process up, politicize it, mandate stuff, and you've still got 25-30 kids under house arrest, by the hour, as required by law, until such time as they either graduate, or turn 18.  That's k-12. Maybe not the best offer in the catalog. Now, though, they're working on digital K-12, where little Johnnie/Suzie can have the benefit of a full-fledged standardized education, in the privacy of the home, under the supervision of mom n dad, where there's no drugs, no schoolyard fights, no teacher's unions, or other distractions.
All roads lead to Rome, as they say, and I think that computer-based education is going to help level the playing field in a lot of ways. Without turning kids over to the tender mercies of a bunch of pedantic pedagogues with psych degrees, and, thanks to government, a captive audience upon which to ply their warez...

[dollbaby]

12:11 AM on 09/13/2010

well when all the kids start learning home they will miss important socialization skills so watch out.

Remember this poem....................Everything I learned I learned in kindergarten.

[Cacey]

08:04 AM on 09/13/2010

I pitty you for the education and education system you endured.  The teachers I had were much more than clock punchers and for the most part the kids I went to school with really enjoyed it and learned much in the process, which resulted in 87% of my high school graduating class going on to college.  We also became socialized, something home schooling never would have allowed.  And I will add that I went to a public school system in a state that borders AZ and had a good, govenrment run, tax payer funded system.

[poeticjustice4all]

10:06 PM on 09/12/2010

These discriminatory practices are going on in nearly every state to some extent. Strapped for cash, states are tweaking assessments and re-formatting benchmarks to generate educational outcomes that will qualify them for federal dollars.

It was recently discovered that school administrators in Atlanta had raised overall student test scores by simply not counting thousands of children. When they were busted, they said it was simply a clerical error! Administrators claimed they thought the students had all dropped out of school.

State officials all over the nation, are using this recession to create cracks for the most vulnerable, at-risk youth to fall through.

[MamaBird62]

09:50 PM on 09/12/2010

Arizona 2010 is Mississippi 1964.

[devildog09]

10:30 PM on 09/12/2010

Spanish was a problem there too? :)

[LeftLeanWing]

12:25 AM on 09/13/2010

Si !

[Ron Phillips]

09:15 PM on 09/12/2010

Let Arizona become a territory, like Puerto Rico. They can set their own standards for everything from education to food safety. No federal income tax. And no voting in federal elections, no Congressional representation, no federal highway funds, etc. They don't want "big government" we'll give them their wish. See how well they're doing in 50 years.

[devildog09]

10:32 PM on 09/12/2010

Try going to another country yourself, and demanding that schools, customer service reps and retailers all speak English to accomodate you. I doubt that you will get very much friendly service, and no support at all from their courts.

[Ron Phillips]

09:14 PM on 09/12/2010

Actually, both originate in the US in the early 19th century. Never the less, public education is socialist - something can conform to an economic model before the model is formally articulated and given a name. Humans engaged in barter before there were economists, duh. Most models (economic or otherwise) exist in the real world and *then* the models are created from observation of the real world behavior.
Its patently obvious that public education is socialist, you just can't accept it because in your simple world all things socialist must be bad. Get a clue: the way we provide law enforcement, fire fighting, and most highways and parks are all inherently socialist: we all pay according to our ability, we all benefit as needed.