English Language Learners

Two Tucson school districts say they can do a better job of teaching English to non-English speakers and they intend to seek alternatives to a teaching mandate from the state Legislature.

Maryam Rahmatillayeva, a usually cheerful fifth-grader from Uzbekistan, knows how to use a computer mouse and can read some English. But the question she faced recently on a practice Idaho Standards Achievement Test in math stumped her nonetheless.

A federal court should suspend the state's new program for English instruction until it is adequately funded and set a deadline for the Legislature to provide the necessary money, the attorney in the long-standing case argued in a court filing Friday.

The Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday unanimously passed a compromise that preserves much of the special training for reading teachers of students learning English -- but the compromise so displeased the bill's Senate sponsor that he promised to let it die without a vote in his chamber.

One provision within the newly adopted English-language-learner law that is wasting state funds is the reassessment of students for two years after they have tested out of the English-learner program

About 85 percent of students in Los Angeles Unified School District's Class of 2008 have passed the state's exit exam - required to receive a high school diploma - but English learners continue to lag, with just 53 percent passing the mandatory test.

Just how a student learns to speak, read and write English in Arizona depends on the school the child happens to attend, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Auditor General.

Next stop in the legal battle over the state's English-learner program: The U.S. Supreme Court.

Gov. Janet Napolitano let a bill that allocates an additional $40 million for English instruction become law without her signature Monday, expressing concern that the state still has unfinished business on the matter.

The state House of Representatives voted Wednesday to spend $40 million next year to boost English-language instruction for non-native speakers, even though school districts with the most English-language learners would get little or none of the money.

The benefits of bilingualism are undisputed. People able to speak more than one language are simply more valuable in the working world than those who can only speak one. And those who speak the hottest languages - English, Spanish, Chinese - are the most valuable by far.

As the state’s Hispanic population grows, public schools are offering English and citizenship courses, translating school documents and offering other assistance.

It's not fair to expect Arizona taxpayers to shoulder a fine of $2 million a day in the state's long-running English-learner case, Gov. Janet Napolitano argues in asking a federal judge to spare the state from the penalty.

What is the true cost of educating English-language learners? That's the ultimate question.

Several Phoenix school officials are aghast at the state education chief's estimate of the cost of teaching students to learn English.