California Watch: K–12: Civil rights groups sue state for violating rights of English learners

Corey G. Johnson

Civil rights groups are accusing the state of violating the constitutional rights of English learners in the Dinuba Unified School District by implementing a program that bars first- and second-grade non-English-speaking students from reading classes.

District teachers and parents say the program, called Structured Language Acquisition Development Instruction, requires first- and second-grade English learners to deconstruct complex sentences and memorize formal parts of speech before they have been taught basic reading skills.

While other first- and second-graders are given books and taught how to read, English learners at Dinuba are excluded from that course work for the first half of the school year. When English learners are allowed to join the reading classes during the second half of the year, they are considerably behind the rest of the students,parents and teachers say.

via Civil rights groups sue state for violating rights of English learners.

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