Saturday, July 14, 2012

Students sue school district for violating their ‘right to read’ | The Raw Story

Students sue school district for violating their ‘right to read’ | The Raw Story:


Students sue school district for violating their ‘right to read’

By The Christian Science Monitor
Saturday, July 14, 2012 3:45 EDT
students reading via Shutterstock

Students are suing the state of Michigan and their Detroit-area school district for violating their “right to read.”
The class-action lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind, and potentially signals a new wave of civil rights litigation in the United States to enforce laws intended to boost academic achievement, education law experts say.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed what it has dubbed the “right to read” lawsuit on behalf of the nearly 1,000 students in the impoverished district.
Two-thirds of 4th-graders and three-quarters of 7th-graders in the Highland Park school district are not proficient on state reading tests; 90 percent of 12th-graders fail the reading portion of the