Federal Law & MLs

English Learner Tool Kit Updated with ESSA references. OELA’s EL Tool Kit was published in 2015 as a companion to support the 2015 Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) produced by the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, and the Department of Justice, outlining legal obligations for ELs. Some chapters of the tool kit have been updated related to the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA).

The English Learner Tool Kit helps state and local education agencies help English Learners (ELs) by fulfilling these obligations.

The Toolkit has 10 chapters (one for each section of the DCL), and contains an overview, sample tools, and resources.

Overview

Stated below is an excerpt from the United States code §1703. Denial of equal educational opportunity prohibited:

No State shall deny equal educational opportunity to an individual on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, by - (f) the failure of an educational agency to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by its students and it's instructional programs.

In other words, Federal Law requires schools to provide language assistance services.

The United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has responsibility for enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regulatory requirements has been interpreted to prohibit denial of equal access to education because of a student's limited Proficiency in English. Thus Title VI protects those students limited in their English language skills such that they are unable to participate in, or benefit from, regular or special education school instructional programs.

During the late 1960s, OCR became aware that many school districts made little or no provision for the education of students who are unable to understand English. In an effort to resolve this problem, on May 25th, 1970, the form of department of health, education, and Welfare issued a memorandum to clarify Title VI requirements concerning the responsibility of school districts to provide equal educational opportunity to language minority students.

The May 25th memorandum explained that Title VI was violated if:

• Programs for students whose English is less than proficient are not designed to teach them English as soon as possible or operate as a dead-end track. 

• Parents whose English is limited do not receive notices and other information from the school in a language they can understand. 

In the 1974 Lau v. Nichols case, The US Supreme Court upheld the May 25th memorandum as a valid interpretation of the requirements of Title VI.

Listed below is a review of other key list legislation, court rulings, and administrative regulations addressing these students and the legal responsibilities of educational agencies serving them.

Other Federal Laws

• Constitution of the United States, 14th Amendment 1868

“ No State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

• Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA) (1974)

“No State shall deny equal educational opportunity to an individual on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, by the failure of an educational agency to take appropriate action to overcome a language barriers that impede equal participation by its students in its instructional programs.”

The Civil Rights Division Educational Opportunities Section of the United States Department of Justice  (http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/edu/types.php) is charged with enforcement of the EEOA, and as such, investigates allegations that State Educational Agencies (SEAs) or school districts are not providing adequate services to ELs. The Section’s web page outlines specific factors for assessing compliance and conditions that may violate the EEOA: 

1. Fails to provide a language acquisition program to its El students or fails to provide adequate language services to its El students;

2. Fails to provide resources to implement its language acquisition program effectively (e.g., an ESOL program lacks ESOL teachers or its own materials);

3. Fails to take steps to identify students who are not proficient in English;

4. Does not exit EL students from a language acquisition program when the EL students have acquired English proficiency, or exits EL students without written parental or guardian permission before the students acquire English proficiency;

5. Fails to communicate meaningfully with non-English-speaking or limited English-speaking parents and guardians of EL students by not providing such parents and guardians with written or oral translation of important notices or documents;

6. Fails to provide language acquisition assistance to ESL students because they receive special education services, or fails to provide special education services to ESL students when they qualify for special education services; and

7.  Excludes ESL students from gifted and talented programs based on their limited English proficiency.

Court Rulings

Supreme Court

1982 - Plyler v. Doe

The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment prohibits States from denying of free public education to Immigrant children regardless of their immigrant status.

Federal Courts

1981 - Castañeda v. Pickard

 The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals formulated a method to determine School District compliance with the Equal Education Opportunities Act (1974). The three-part test includes the following criteria:

1. “the school is pursuing a program informed by an educational theory recognized as found by some experts in the field or, at least, deemed legitimate experimental strategy;

2. the program and practices actually used by the school system are reasonably calculated to implement effectively the educational theory adopted by the school;

3. the school’s program succeeds, after a legitimate trial, in producing results indicating that the language barriers confronting students are actually being overcome.” Id. at 1009-10.

Castañeda states that the segregation of LEP students is permissible only when “the benefits which would accrue to LEP students by remedying language barriers which impede their abilities to realize their academic potential in an English-language educational institution May outweigh the adverse effects of such segregation”. In other words, OCR will not examine whether ESOL is the least segregated program for providing language Services. Instead OCR will examine whether the degree of segregation in the program is necessary to achieve the program's educational goals.