Arizona sues federal government again over ELL students’ test scores
The Arizona Republic reports that the state of Arizona is suing the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to stop it from labeling schools as failing because students still learning English are doing poorly on the state’s AIMS test. Under state law, students in third through eighth grades and in high school take standardized tests, known as AIMS, which must be administered in English only. AIMS scores are used to determine whether schools are meeting federal standards for yearly progress. Under federal law if schools fail to meet the standard three or more years in a row, the state must intervene. About 78 Arizona schools face state intervention solely because their English-language learners are doing poorly on the exam. It's the second suit filed in federal court, highlighting a three-year feud between Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and ED. Superintendent Horne had a verbal agreement with ED in 2003 to allow Arizona schools to exclude the scores of ELL students until they completed three years of English instruction. However, in 2005, federal officials decided to require Arizona to count language-learner AIMS scores after only one year of instruction.
Source: Arizona Republic, 6/24/08, By Pat Kossan
[Editor’s Note: Arizona’s legal complaint is below. Background on the previous lawsuit against ED is at the next link. The U.S. district court in Arizona dismissed that suit in February of 2007, in an unpublished opinion, Arizona State Dept. of Educ. v. U.S. Dept. of Educ., No. CV-06-1719-PHX-DGC (D. Ariz., 2007), holding that the federal General Education Provisions Act (GEPA) precluded the challenge to ED’s interpretation prior to the initiation by ED of any enforcement action. The last link is to information on Arizona’s long-running judicial and legislative back-and-forth over the funding of English language learner programs.]
Horne v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ. legal complaint
NSBA School Law pages on Arizona State Dept. of Educ. v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ.
NSBA School Law pages on Arizona ELL funding battles