English learners lawsuit could affect California school districts
State officials are neglecting their legal obligation to ensure English learners are receiving an adequate and equal education, says a lawsuit filed Wednesday by advocates that include the ACLU of Southern California.
The focus of the litigation is a small school system near Fresno, but the ramifications are much wider, with the potential to affect English learners statewide and to compel the California Department of Education to aggressively enforce state law.
The suit claims the Dinuba Unified School District in Tulare County is using a substandard, unproven curriculum in a misguided effort to improve the lagging performance of students who have yet to master English.
For the last three years, children in Dinuba “have been subjected to a program ... that lacks sound educational support, contradicts bedrock principles of how children learn language, and continues to be resisted vigorously by their knowledgeable and caring teachers,” according to the suit, which was filed in Sacramento.
The program called Second Language Acquisition Development Instruction and known by its acronym, SLADI,
The focus of the litigation is a small school system near Fresno, but the ramifications are much wider, with the potential to affect English learners statewide and to compel the California Department of Education to aggressively enforce state law.
The suit claims the Dinuba Unified School District in Tulare County is using a substandard, unproven curriculum in a misguided effort to improve the lagging performance of students who have yet to master English.
For the last three years, children in Dinuba “have been subjected to a program ... that lacks sound educational support, contradicts bedrock principles of how children learn language, and continues to be resisted vigorously by their knowledgeable and caring teachers,” according to the suit, which was filed in Sacramento.
The program called Second Language Acquisition Development Instruction and known by its acronym, SLADI,