Education

U.S. Supreme Court Hears Horne v. Flores

By Mary Ann Zehr — April 20, 2009 1 min read
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In today’s oral arguments in Horne v. Flores, the long-running ELL case in Arizona, U.S. Supreme Court justices questioned what is sufficient academic progress for ELLs.

Justice Antonin Scalia at one point asked: “Do you really think you haven’t complied with adequate funding of ELL programs until you raise all of the ELL students up to the level of native-English speakers?” (Link to transcript is here.)

It sounds a lot like a question that a lot of educators ask about the No Child Left Behind Act. Is it appropriate for the federal education law to require ELLs to meet the same standards as native-English speakers?

See the School Law Blog for my colleague Mark Walsh’s report on today’s arguments. Our Web site also has a story that I wrote about the arguments.

Update: The Associated Press filed a story on the oral arguments as well. NPR also covered the case.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Learning the Language blog.