To settle a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the California Department of Education (CDE) regarding students’ access to federally mandated English learner services, the CDE has recently agreed to improve data collection systems to more easily identify students denied English language services, better inform school districts of their legal obligation to help them and strengthen reviews of their assistance programs to boost their oversight of such services by school districts.  A Los Angeles judge had previously ruled in D.J., et al. v. State of California, et al that CDE had failed to require school districts to provide legally required services to English learning students.  CDE will be seeking funding to help with improving and strengthening services for California’s 1.4 million English learning students by hiring three new specialists.

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