A class action filed April 18 in an Arizona court challenges the state’s requirement that English-language learners pass the state’s high school exit exam to get a diploma, arguing that the state doesn’t adequately prepare such students for the test.
The William E. Morris Institute for Justice and the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, both in Phoenix, filed the suit in Maricopa County Superior Court on behalf of English-language learners in the class of 2006 who have not passed the test.
The law center is also representing English-language learners in the separate Flores v. Arizona federal lawsuit, which contends the state does not spend enough money on the education of such children.
The judge in the federal case ruled in December that Arizona’s English-learners didn’t have to pass the exit exam to get a diploma until the state improved programs for them. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit delayed that ruling, saying it cannot go into effect at least until July 24.
