English Language Learners Essay

There are 1.4 million students in the state of California classified as an English Language learner. For the past ten years these students have been denied their rights to a quality education and the services they need to advance and become fluent in English (Blume, 2017). Legal mandates in education are necessary to protect the rights of diverse learners to ensure that students are receiving appropriate instruction that will prepare them to be College and Career Ready. For students who are learning English as a second language, State and Federal requirements are designed to protect the civil rights of these students. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that students cannot legally be denied an education based “on the ground of race, color,

“This class suit brought by non-English-speaking Chinese students against officials responsible for the operation of the San Francisco Unified School District seeks relief against the unequal educational opportunities which are alleged to violate, inter alia, the Fourteenth Amendment ("Lau v. Nichols (excerpts)", 2017).” In the case of Lau vs Nichols which was brought on by several non English speaking Chinese helped gain the right to a quality education which was to teach them English. In this case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school districts must take the appropriate action required to ensure that English Learners received access to an equal education. In 1975 the Department of Health and Welfare services issued the Lau vs Nichols Remedies, which sets specific procedures for schools to put into place that meets legal obligations on how students are taught. The remedy prevented local districts from choosing the cheapest way to fix this problem. The office of Civil rights used threats to withhold federal funding if the Lau remedies were not put into place at the school districts. They did not withhold any federal funds but over the next five years the school districts began to adopt the bilingual