Texas Out Of Compliance With Regulations To Help Non-English Speaking Students

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With over 775,000 students considered limited English proficient (LEP) this past school year out of approximately 1.4 million enrolled in the public school system, and around 771,000 of those being Spanish-speaking, it is safe to say that Texas has a high portion of children in the public school system requiring assistance in overcoming barriers to language.

A San Antonio news article reported that Senior U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice ruled last Friday that the state was failing to appropriately educate that particular group of children, thereby failing them as a whole. The ruling is said to give hope to those who are faced with academic problems due to language barriers.

“The failure of secondary (limited English proficient) students under every metric clearly and convincingly demonstrates student failure, and accordingly, the failure of the (English as a Second Language) secondary program in Texas,”

The students in this group have a higher dropout rate, more than twice the rate of their English proficient peers and score much lower on standardized testing required for advancement and graduation. Scores for the middle and highschool level tests showed almost no improvement between 2003 and 2006 when comparing the gaps between limited English proficient to all students:

...eighth-grade achievement gap for reading never got better than 48 percentage points between limited English proficient students and all students from 2003 to 2006. The 10th-grade achievement gap for mathematics never got better than 31 percentage points during that same time period. And the 11th-grade achievement gap for science never got better than 30 percentage points.

What this means was that non-English proficient students scored 48 percentage points lower than an English proficient peer. Across the board, these scores were considered poor and validated the fact that many children were not receiving enough assistance to help bring them up to a level of proficiency.

With such a high number of ESL qualifying students and programs deemed as ineffective, it seems as though Texas needs to stop appealing and start working on a way to place its focus on getting LEP students into classes of their own that will bring them up to a level of proficiency on par with their peers, regardless of their age. But this isn't a problem exclusive to Texas.

Other states, like California have a much higher number of limited English proficiency. According to data from the Migration Information Source that includes the last Census report, limited English proficiency students have increased over 65 percent between 1994 and 2004 while regular student enrollment increased by only 12 percent. Although these numbers are four years old, they do show a national trend in the number of limited English proficiency making this more than just a Texas issue.

Also, the passage of No Child Left Behind tied the hands of school districts across the country, forcing them to teach children LEP students, many without provisions. Now, the results are showing just how ineffective NCLB was but how the results hold accountable states who failed to bring these students up to a level of proficiency.

NCLB:

meeting the educational needs of low-achieving children in our Nation's highest-poverty schools, limited English proficient children, migratory children, children with disabilities, Indian children, neglected or delinquent children, and young children in need of reading assistance;
closing the achievement gap between high- and low-performing children, especially the achievement gaps between minority and nonminority students, and between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers;
holding schools, local educational agencies, and States accountable for improving the academic achievement of all students, and identifying and turning around low-performing schools that have failed to provide a high-quality education to their students, while providing alternatives to students in such schools to enable the students to receive a high-quality education;

In a final quote, the judge said of his own state's program that "After a quarter-century of sputtering implementation, (the state has) failed to achieve results. Failed implementation cannot prolong the existence of a failed program in perpetuity."