English Language Learners & Litigation

One of the biggest challenges facing schools today are English Language Learners and the increased attention this group has received under NCLB. Next to special education, the English Language Learner population is the AYP subgroup most frequently responsible for schools being classified as in need of improvement. Not that these students should not be receiving special attention, because they should and the disaggregation of the ELL data under NCLB has really been a help. But, integrating these students and still meeting federal accountability demands has been particularly troublesome for school leaders as they try to keep their schools in the AYP passing column. .

Well, this issue is now at the center of a controversy between the federal government and Chicago Public Schools. In their latest filing in an ongoing desegregation fight, the Justice Department claims that CPS was not providing native language instruction to ELL students.

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.

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The English Language Learner aspects of No Child Left Behind is where we are going to continue to see increases in litigation as schools try to navigate the requirements. While under the current laws I don't think ELL litigation will ever rival the volume of special education litigation, it is going to become a larger and larger specialty of educational law.