Horne vs. Flore

The Supreme Court heard Horne vs. Flore, a long- running ELL case in Arizona. The Supreme Court Justices questioned what is sufficient academic progress for ELLs. Here is some SCOTUS coverage.

The case, Horne v. Flores, involves the English-language instruction program in Nogales, Ariz., for students identified as “English Language Learners (ELL).” Nogales is a border town and many of the the students in the school district speak Spanish as a first language.

In 2000, U.S. District Court Judge Alfredo Marquez found that the ELL program violated the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974, which says that students may not be denied educational opportunity based on the failure of a school district to take “appropriate action” to remedy language barriers.

Marquez ruled that Nogales’ ELL program was not adequately funded and that the school district needed to fund the program based on its needs. The judge said that the district should conduct a study to determine what an adequate level of funding would be.

Here is some more context.

An article and video on the case can be found on NPR.