Researchers who prepared studies they hope will be used during an evidentiary hearing for a long-running federal court case regarding Arizona’s approach to educating English-language learners are upset that they’re being asked to turn over confidential information associated with those studies.
I’ve written about the sparring among players in the court case Horne v. Flores in an article just published on edweek.org. Lawyers for Tom Horne, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, have asked expert witnesses scheduled to testify for the Flores side of the case from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and Arizona State University, Tempe, to provide raw data, including the names of participants, from their studies.
In June 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded Horne v. Flores to the U.S. District Court in Tucson to examine “changed circumstances” in how the education of ELLs is different in the state than it was when parents in the Nogales, Ariz., school district had filed the case in 1992.
An evidentiary hearing is scheduled to start Sept. 1 in the U.S. District Court.