California Working To Overhaul ELL System

The AP (12/28) reports on the plight of Spanish speaking students who are thrust into English-only classrooms in California, and fall behind on their academics as they struggle to learn English, noting that education experts stress "the need for a statewide overhaul of how schools teach kids English. ... Educators are now closely observing the Los Angeles Unified School District after the US Department of Education recently criticized its 200,000-pupil English learning program, saying it violated students' civil rights by failing to provide an equal education to non-native speakers. Under federal monitoring, LAUSD is overhauling its English learner program, the largest in the country." The piece suggests that Los Angeles' new system could serve as a template for other districts.