Opinion ID: 1320911
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Equality Based Comparisons

Text: First, the trial court determined that PBMAS was flawed because it did not make equality based comparisons between LEP and non-LEP students. Data collected under PBMAS compares LEP student achievement to state assigned target passage rates; a district's deviation from state targets determines its performance level, which in turn determines whether and to what degree TEA will intervene. Thus, PBMAS does not directly compare LEP student achievement with non-LEP student achievement, and absent such a direct comparison, the district court concluded that the program could not adequately monitor the effectiveness of LEP programs. The only basis the district court provided for this conclusion was that the EEOA is an equality based statute. Federal law provides no instruction as to how states should analyze LEP student achievement. But the Supreme Court did recently hold that the EEOA requires `appropriate action' to remove language barriers, § 1703(f), not the equalization of results between native and nonnative speakers on tests administered in English. Horne, 129 S.Ct. at 2605. And by state law, defendants are only required to evaluate the effectiveness of [bilingual and ESL] programs as compared to state-established standards. TEX. EDUC. CODE §§ 29.062(a), 39.053(b). We do not believe that EEOA compliance requires the comparisons insisted on by the district court. Further, reasonable minds could differ over what comparative method is most effective to determine whether language barriers are being overcome. The State of Texas and the TEA have determined that success is best measured by determining whether LEP students are achieving state-passage rate targets, and there is no evidence that the district court's preferred method of comparison is better than that of the State's. In fact, the district court's method comes with significant faults. For example, standardized tests are administered to secondary LEP students in English, a language in which they, by definition, lack proficiency. Horne, 129 S.Ct. at 2603 n. 16; Castaneda, 648 F.2d at 1014. English administration makes it difficult for test results to accurately capture an LEP student's knowledge of core curriculum, and it is inevitable that such students will not perform as well as non-LEP students. Also, once an LEP student has successfully completed a language remediation program, he or she is no longer identified as LEP, rendering it impossible for a direct comparison to adequately capture program successes. Thus, a direct comparison between LEP and non-LEP students may not adequately represent the actual achievement gap between the two groups. And, by making equality a priority, districts with a significant gap in passage rates will require intervention regardless of how high LEP student scores might be, whereas no intervention will occur in districts where LEP and non-LEP students have lower, but reasonably equivalent, scores. The district court failed to adequately acknowledge any of the above criticisms and, instead, abused its discretion by supplanting defendants' educational policy decision with its own judgment. Moreover, there is no evidence that any such method of comparison deficiency caused any deprivation of the Section 1703(f) rights of Mexican-American LEP students.