Sunday, December 21, 2008

Texas ordered to come up with new plan for ESL education

By Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex

William Wayne Justice

Federal District Judge William Wayne Justice ordered on Friday that the state must develop a new English as a Second Language Program for Texas students by the start of next school year.

A preliminary plan of action must be provided to the court by January 31.

Justice rejected requests from the state to postpone his order, but declined, saying students had waited long enough for the state to fix a broken system.

“The time has come to put a halt to the failed secondary English as a Second Language program and monitoring system” in Texas, the judge said in a ruling released Friday.

While an appeal and request for stay from Justice’s order is possible, the Dallas Morning News reported that the chairs of the House and Senate education committees have indicated that the Legislature is already “zeroing in” on problems with ESL students.

Naturally, state officials place a high cost on complying with Justice’s order: $70 million a year or about $500 more per student than presently allotted. That number seems high, but we’ll have to wait and see what kind of Fiscal Note gets attached to whatever solution the Legislature proposes to fix the problem.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the group representing the plaintiffs in the case, pointed out to the DMN that Justice’s original order actually came out in July, and that the state has had ample time to develop a new plan, but elected instead to appeal Justice’s order.

Here is what State Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano), chair of the Senate Education Committee, had to say on this:

“While our elementary school students are doing very well, we recognize there are problems in our high schools that we want to address,” she said.

And State Rep. Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands), chair of the House Public Education Committee:

One thing to watch will be how this problem effects Shapiro’s run for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s United States Senate seat.

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