Iliyana Beneke, ESL Teacher, Minnesota

This is a digitally downloadable product.  To download a high quality pdf, please go to http://app.fastshoppingcart.com/preview/ELL-Bill-of-Rights-Poster-DOWNLOADABLE-1202.htm

US Court Cases that served as the basis for the poster:

Diana v. State Board of Education (1970): This was a case in which the use of tests to place students was  challenged. Diana, a Spanish-speaking student in Monterey County, California, had been placed in a class for mildly mentally retarded students because she had scored low on an IQ test given to her in English. The court ruled that Spanish-speaking children should be retested in their native language to avoid errors in placement.

Lau v. Nichols (1974): A class action suit brought by parents of non-English-proficient Chinese students against the San Francisco Unified School District. In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that identical education does not constitute equal education under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court ruled that the district must take affirmative steps to overcome educational barriers faced by the non-English speaking Chinese students in the district. [414 U.S. 563 (1974)]

There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same
facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum; for students who do not
understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education. http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ell/edlite-first.html

Larry P. v. Riles (1979) Larry P. Was a black student in California, and his complaint led to an expansion of the ruling in the Diana case. The court ruled that schools are  responsible for providing tests that do not discriminate on the basis of race.  In the class-action case of PASE v. Hannon (1980), however, the fudge stated he  could find little evidence of bias in the test items. The Larry P. Case also set  a precedent for the use of data indicating disproportionate placement of  minority groups as prima facie evidence of discrimination. However, subsequent cases have undermined this precedent (Marshall et a. v. Georgia [1984] and S-I v. Turlington [1986]).

Castañeda vs. Pickard, 648 F. 2d 989 (5th Cir. 1981) http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ell/glossary.html#castaneda

On June 23, 1981, the Fifth Circuit Court issued a decision that is the seminal post-Lau decision concerning education of language minority students. The case established a three-part test to evaluate the adequacy of a district’s program for ELL students: (1) is the program based on an educational theory recognized as sound by some experts in the field or is considered by experts as a legitimate experimental strategy; (2) are the programs and practices, including resources and personnel, reasonably calculated to implement this theory effectively; and (3) does the school district evaluate its programs and make adjustments where needed to ensure language barriers are actually being overcome? [648 F.2d 989 (5th Cir., 1981)]

The court decision established a three-part assessment for determining how bilingual education programs would be held responsible for meeting the requirements of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974. The criteria are listed below:

• The bilingual education program must be “based on sound educational theory.”
• The program must be “implemented effectively with resources for personnel, instructional materials, and space.”
• After a trial period, the program must be proven effective in overcoming language barriers/handicaps.

Plyler vs. Doe (1982) The United States Supreme Court held in the case of Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), that a State may not deny access to a basic public education to any child residing in the State, whether present in the United States legally or otherwise. Denying “innocent children” access to a public education, the Court explained, “imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status. . . . By denying these children a basic education, we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation.” Plyler, 457 U.S. at 223.  As Plyler makes clear, the undocumented or non-citizen status of a student (or his or her parent or guardian) is irrelevant to that student’s entitlement to an elementary and secondary public education.

From Dear Colleague Letter (ed.gov)