Opinion ID: 390327
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the bilingual education and language remediation programs of the raymondville schools6

Text: 41 RISD currently operates a bilingual education program for all students in kindergarten through third grade. 7 The language ability of each student entering the Raymondville program is assessed when he or she enters school. The language dominance test currently employed by the district is approved for this purpose by the TEA. The program of bilingual instruction offered students in the Raymondville schools has been developed with the assistance of expert consultants retained by the TEA and employs a group of materials developed by a regional educational center operated by the TEA. The articulated goal of the program is to teach students fundamental reading and writing skills in both Spanish and English by the end of third grade. 42 Although the program's emphasis is on the development of language skills in the two languages, other cognitive and substantive areas are addressed, e. g., mathematics skills are taught and tested in Spanish as well as English during these years. All of the teachers employed in the bilingual education program of the district have met the minimum state requirements to teach bilingual classes. However, only about half of these teachers are Mexican-American and native Spanish speakers; the other teachers in the program have been certified to teach bilingual classes following a 100 hour course designed by TEA to give them a limited Spanish vocabulary (700 words) and an understanding of the theory and methods employed in bilingual programs. Teachers in the bilingual program are assisted by classroom aides, most of whom are fluent in Spanish. 43 RISD does not offer a formal program of bilingual education after the third grade. In grades 4 and 5, although classroom instruction is only in English, Spanish speaking teacher aides are used to assist students having language difficulties which may impair their ability to participate in classroom activities. For students in grades 4-12 having limited English proficiency or academic deficiencies in other areas, the RISD provides assistance in the form of a learning center operated at each school. This center provides a diagnostic/prescriptive program in which students' particular academic deficiencies, whether in language or other areas, are identified and addressed by special remedial programs. Approximately 1,000 of the district's students, almost one-third of the total enrollment, receive special assistance through small classes provided by these learning centers. The district also makes English as a Second Language classes and special tutoring in English available to all students in all grades; this program is especially designed to meet the needs of limited English speaking students who move into the district in grades above 3. 8 44 Plaintiffs claim that the bilingual education and language remediation programs offered by the Raymondville schools are educationally deficient and unsound and that RISD's failure to alter and improve these programs places the district in violation of Title VI and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act. The plaintiffs claim that the RISD programs fail to comport with the requirements of the Lau Guidelines promulgated in 1975 by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Specifically, plaintiffs contend that the articulated goal of the Raymondville program to teach limited English speaking children to read and write in both English and Spanish at grade level is improper because it overemphasizes the development of English language skills to the detriment of the child's overall cognitive development. Under the Lau Guidelines, plaintiffs argue, pressing English on the child is not the first goal of language remediation. Plaintiffs criticize not only the premise and purpose of the RISD language programs but also particular aspects of the implementation of the program. Specifically, plaintiffs take issue with the tests the district employs to identify and assess limited English speaking children and the qualifications of the teachers and staff involved in the district's language remediation program. Plaintiffs contend that in both of these areas RISD falls short of standards established by the Lau Guidelines and thus has fallen out of compliance with Title VI and the EEOA. 45 We agree with the district court that RISD's program does not violate Title VI. Much of the plaintiffs' argument with regard to Title VI is based upon the premise that the Lau Guidelines are administrative regulations applicable to the RISD and thus should be given great weight by us in assessing the legal sufficiency of the district's programs. This premise is, however, flawed. The Department of HEW, in assessing the district's compliance with Title VI, acknowledged that the Lau Guidelines were inapplicable to an evaluation of the legal sufficiency of the district's language program. The Lau Guidelines were formulated by the Department following the Supreme Court's decision in Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 94 S.Ct. 786, 39 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974). In Lau, the Supreme Court determined that a school district's failure to provide any English language assistance to substantial numbers of non-English speaking Chinese students enrolled in the district's schools violated Title VI because this failure denied these students a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educational program offered by the school district, 414 U.S. at 568, 94 S.Ct. at 789. Lau involved a school district which offered many non-English speaking students no assistance in developing English language skills; in declaring such an omission unlawful, the Court did not dictate the form such assistance must take. Indeed the Court specifically noted that the school district might undertake any one of several permissible courses of language remediation: 46 Teaching English to the students of Chinese ancestry who do not speak the language is one choice. Giving instruction to this group in Chinese is another. There may be others. 47 Id. at 565, 94 S.Ct. at 787. The petitioners in Lau did not specifically request, nor did the Court require, court ordered relief in the form of bilingual education; the plaintiffs in that case sought only that the Board of Education be directed to apply its expertise to the problem  Id. 48 Following the Supreme Court's decision in Lau, HEW developed the Lau Guidelines as a suggested compliance plan for school districts which, as a result of Lau, were in violation of Title VI because they failed to provide any English language assistance to students having limited English proficiency. Clearly, Raymondville is not culpable of such a failure. Under these circumstances, the fact that Raymondville provides (and long has provided) a program of language remediation which differs in some respects from these guidelines is, as the opinion of the Reviewing Authority for the OCR noted, not in itself sufficient to rule that program unlawful in the first instance. 49 The Lau Guidelines were the result of a policy conference organized by HEW; these guidelines were not developed through the usual administrative procedures employed to draft administrative rules or regulations. The Lau Guidelines were never published in the Federal Register. Since the Department itself in its administrative decision found that RISD's departure from the Lau Guidelines was not determinative of the question whether the district complied with Title VI, we do not think that these guidelines are the sort of administrative document to which we customarily give great deference in our determinations of compliance with a statute. 50 We must confess to serious doubts not only about the relevance of the Lau Guidelines to this case but also about the continuing vitality of the rationale of the Supreme Court's opinion in Lau v. Nichols which gave rise to those guidelines. Lau was written prior to Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976), in which the Court held that a discriminatory purpose, and not simply a disparate impact, must be shown to establish a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, and University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978), in which, as we have already noted, a majority of the court interpreted Title VI to be coextensive with the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Brennan's opinion (in which Justices White, Marshall and Blackmun joined) in Bakke explicitly acknowledged that these developments raised serious questions about the vitality of Lau. 51 We recognize that Lau, especially when read in light of our subsequent decision in Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597) (1976), which rejected the general propostion that governmental action is unconstitutional solely because it has a racially disproportionate impact, may be read as being predicated upon the view that, at least under some circumstances, Title VI proscribes conduct which might not be prohibited by the Constitution. Since we are now of the opinion, for the reasons set forth above, that Title VI's standard, applicable alike to public and private recipients of federal funds, is no broader than the Constitution's, we have serious doubts concerning the correctness of what appears to be the premise of that decision. 52 Id. at 352, 98 S.Ct. at 2779. Although the Supreme Court in Bakke did not expressly overrule Lau, as we noted above, we understand the clear import of Bakke to be that Title VI, like the Equal Protection Clause, is violated only by conduct animated by an intent to discriminate and not by conduct which, although benignly motivated, has a differential impact on persons of different races. Whatever the deficiencies of the RISD's program of language remediation may be, we do not think it can seriously be asserted that this program was intended or designed to discriminate against Mexican-American students in the district. Thus, we think it cannot be said that the arguable inadequacies of the program render it violative of Title VI. 53 Plaintiffs, however, do not base their legal challenge to the district's language program solely on Title VI. They also claim that the district's current program is unlawful under § 1703(f) of the EEOA which makes it unlawful for an educational agency to fail to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by its students in its instructional programs. As we noted above in dissecting the meaning of § 1703(d) of the EEOA, we have very little legislative history from which to glean the Congressional intent behind the EEOA's provisions. Thus, as we did in examining § 1703(d), we shall adhere closely to the plain language of § 1703(f) in defining the meaning of this provision. Unlike subsections (a) and (e) of § 1703, § 1703(f) does not contain language that explicitly incorporates an intent requirement nor, like § 1703(d) which we construed above, does this subsection employ words such as discrimination whose legal definition has been understood to incorporate an intent requirement. Although we have not previously explicitly considered this question, in Morales v. Shannon, supra, we assumed that the failure of an educational agency to undertake appropriate efforts to remedy the language deficiencies of its students, regardless of whether such a failure is motivated by an intent to discriminate against those students, would violate § 1703(f) and we think that such a construction of that subsection is most consistent with the plain meaning of the language employed in § 1703(f). Thus, although serious doubts exist about the continuing vitality of Lau v. Nichols as a judicial interpretation of the requirements of Title VI or the fourteenth amendment, the essential holding of Lau, i. e., that schools are not free to ignore the need of limited English speaking children for language assistance to enable them to participate in the instructional program of the district, has now been legislated by Congress, acting pursuant to its power to enforce the fourteenth amendment, in § 1703(f). 9 The difficult question presented by plaintiffs' challenge to the current language remediation programs in RISD is really whether Congress in enacting § 1703(f) intended to go beyond the essential requirement of Lau, that the schools do something, and impose, through the use of the term appropriate action a more specific obligation on state and local educational authorities. 54 We do not believe that Congress, at the time it adopted the EEOA, intended to require local educational authorities to adopt any particular type of language remediation program. At the same time Congress enacted the EEOA, it passed the Bilingual Education Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C. § 880b et seq. (1976). The Bilingual Educational Act established a program of federal financial assistance intended to encourage local educational authorities to develop and implement bilingual education programs. The Bilingual Education Act implicitly embodied a recognition that bilingual education programs were still in experimental stages and that a variety of programs and techniques would have to be tried before it could be determined which were most efficacious. Thus, although the Act empowered the U.S. Office of Education to develop model programs, Congress expressly directed that the state and local agencies receiving funds under the Act were not required to adopt one of these model programs but were free to develop their own. Conf.Rep. No. 93-1026, 93d Cong., 2nd Sess. (1974), reprinted in (1974) U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 4093, 4206. 55 We note that although Congress enacted both the Biligual Education Act and the EEOA as part of the 1974 amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Congress, in describing the remedial obligation it sought to impose on the states in the EEOA, did not specify that a state must provide a program of bilingual education to all limited English speaking students. We think Congress' use of the less specific term, appropriate action, rather than biligual education, indicates that Congress intended to leave state and local educational authorities a substantial amount of latitude in choosing the programs and techniques they would use to meet their obligations under the EEOA. However, by including an obligation to address the problem of language barriers in the EEOA and granting limited English speaking students a private right of action to enforce that obligation in § 1706, Congress also must have intended to insure that schools made a genuine and good faith effort, consistent with local circumstances and resources, to remedy the language deficiencies of their students and deliberately placed on federal courts the difficult responsibility of determining whether that obligation had been met. 56 Congress has provided us with almost no guidance, in the form of text or legislative history, to assist us in determining whether a school district's language remediation efforts are appropriate. Thus we find ourselves confronted with a type of task which federal courts are ill-equipped to perform and which we are often criticized for undertaking prescribing substantive standards and policies for institutions whose governance is properly reserved to other levels and branches of our government (i. e., state and local educational agencies) which are better able to assimilate and assess the knowledge of professionals in the field. Confronted, reluctantly, with this type of task in this case, we have attempted to devise a mode of analysis which will permit ourselves and the lower courts to fulfill the responsibility Congress has assigned to us without unduly substituting our educational values and theories for the educational and political decisions reserved to state or local school authorities or the expert knowledge of educators. 57 In a case such as this one in which the appropriateness of a particular school system's language remediation program is challenged under § 1703(f), we believe that the responsibility of the federal court is threefold. First, the court must examine carefully the evidence the record contains concerning the soundness of the educational theory or principles upon which the challenged program is based. This, of course, is not to be done with any eye toward discerning the relative merits of sound but competing bodies of expert educational opinion, for choosing between sound but competing theories is properly left to the educators and public officials charged with responsibility for directing the educational policy of a school system. The state of the art in the area of language remediation may well be such that respected authorities legitimately differ as to the best type of educational program for limited English speaking students and we do not believe that Congress in enacting § 1703(f) intended to make the resolution of these differences the province of federal courts. The court's responsibility, insofar as educational theory is concerned, is only to ascertain that a school system is pursing a program informed by an educational theory recognized as sound by some experts in the field or, at least, deemed a legitimate experimental strategy. 58 The court's second inquiry would be whether the programs and practices actually used by a school system are reasonably calculated to implement effectively the educational theory adopted by the school. We do not believe that it may fairly be said that a school system is taking appropriate action to remedy language barriers if, despite the adoption of a promising theory, the system fails to follow through with practices, resources and personnel necessary to transform the theory into reality. 59 Finally, a determination that a school system has adopted a sound program for alleviating the language barriers impeding the educational progress of some of its students and made bona fide efforts to make the program work does not necessarily end the court's inquiry into the appropriateness of the system's actions. If a school's program, although premised on a legitimate educational theory and implemented through the use of adequate techniques, fails, after being employed for a period of time sufficient to give the plan a legitimate trial, to produce results indicating that the language barriers confronting students are actually being overcome, that program may, at that point, no longer constitute appropriate action as far as that school is concerned. We do not believe Congress intended that under § 1703(f) a school would be free to persist in a policy which, although it may have been appropriate when adopted, in the sense that there were sound expectations for success and bona fide efforts to make the program work, has, in practice, proved a failure. 60 With this framework to guide our analysis we now turn to review the district court's determination that the RISD's current language remediation programs were appropriate action within the meaning of § 1703(f). Implicit in this conclusion was a determination that the district had adequately implemented a sound program. In conducting this review, we shall consider this conclusion as a determination of a mixed question of fact and law. Therefore we shall be concerned with determining whether this conclusion was adequately supported by subsidiary findings of fact which do not appear clearly erroneous. 61 In this case, the plaintiffs' challenge to the appropriateness of the RISD's efforts to overcome the language barriers of its students does not rest on an argument over the soundness of the educational policy being pursued by the district, but rather on the alleged inadequacy of the program actually implemented by the district. 10 Plaintiffs contend that in three areas essential to the adequacy of a bilingual program curriculum, staff and testing Raymondville falls short. Plaintiffs contend that although RISD purports to offer a bilingual education program in grades K-3, the district's curriculum actually overemphasizes the development of reading and writing skills in English to the detriment of education in other areas such as mathematics and science, and that, as a result, children whose first language was Spanish emerge from the bilingual education program behind their classmates in these other areas. The record in this case does not support plaintiffs' allegation that the educational program for predominantly Spanish speaking students in grades K-3 provides significantly less attention to these other areas than does the curriculum used in the English language dominant classrooms. The bilingual education manual developed by the district outlines the basic classroom schedules for both Spanish dominant classrooms and English dominant classrooms. These schedules indicate that students in the Spanish language dominant classrooms spend almost exactly the same amount of classroom time on math, science and social studies as do their counterparts in the predominantly English speaking classrooms. The extra time that Spanish language dominant children spend on language development is drawn almost entirely from what might fairly be deemed the extras rather than the basic skills components of the elementary school curriculum, e. g., naps, music, creative writing and physical education. 62 Even if we accept this allegation as true, however, we do not think that a school system which provides limited English speaking students with a curriculum, during the early part of their school career, which has, as its primary objective, the development of literacy in English, has failed to fulfill its obligations under § 1703(f), even if the result of such a program is an interim sacrifice of learning in other areas during this period. The language of § 1703(f) speaks in terms of taking action to overcome language barriers which impede the equal participation of limited English speaking children in the regular instructional program. We believe the statute clearly contemplates that provision of a program placing primary emphasis on the development of English language skills would constitute appropriate action. 63 Limited English speaking students entering school face a task not encountered by students who are already proficient in English. Since the number of hours in any school day is limited, some of the time which limited English speaking children will spend learning English may be devoted to other subjects by students who entered school already proficient in English. In order to be able ultimately to participate equally with the students who entered school with an English language background, the limited English speaking students will have to acquire both English language proficiency comparable to that of the average native speakers and to recoup any deficits which they may incur in other areas of the curriculum as a result of this extra expenditure of time on English language development. We understand § 1703(f) to impose on educational agencies not only an obligation to overcome the direct obstacle to learning which the language barrier itself poses, but also a duty to provide limited English speaking ability students with assistance in other areas of the curriculum where their equal participation may be impaired because of deficits incurred during participation in an agency's language remediation program. If no remedial action is taken to overcome the academic deficits that limited English speaking students may incur during a period of intensive language training, then the language barrier, although itself remedied, might, nevertheless, pose a lingering and indirect impediment to these students' equal participation in the regular instructional program. We also believe, however, that § 1703(f) leaves schools free to determine whether they wish to discharge these obligations simultaneously, by implementing a program designed to keep limited English speaking students at grade level in other areas of the curriculum by providing instruction in their native language at the same time that an English language development effort is pursued, or to address these problems in sequence, by focusing first on the development of English language skills and then later providing students with compensatory and supplemental education to remedy deficiencies in other areas which they may develop during this period. In short, § 1703(f) leaves schools free to determine the sequence and manner in which limited English speaking students tackle this dual challenge so long as the schools design programs which are reasonably calculated to enable these students to attain parity of participation in the standard instructional program within a reasonable length of time after they enter the school system. Therefore, we disagree with plaintiffs' assertion that a school system which chooses to focus first on English language development and later provides students with an intensive remedial program to help them catch up in other areas of the curriculum has failed to fulfill its statutory obligation under § 1703(f). 64 Although we therefore find no merit in the plaintiffs' claim that RISD's language remediation programs are inappropriate under § 1703 because of the emphasis the curriculum allegedly places on English language development in the primary grades, we are more troubled by the plaintiffs' allegations that the district's implementation of the program has been severely deficient in the area of preparing its teachers for bilingual education. Although the plaintiffs raised this issue below and introduced evidence addressed to it, the district court made no findings on the adequacy of the teacher training program employed by RISD. 11 We begin by noting that any school district that chooses to fulfill its obligations under § 1703 by means of a bilingual education program has undertaken a responsibility to provide teachers who are able competently to teach in such a program. The record in this case indicates that some of the teachers employed in the RISD bilingual program have a very limited command of Spanish, despite completion of the TEA course. Plaintiffs' expert witness, Dr. Jose Cardenas, was one of the bilingual educators who participated in the original design of the 100 hour continuing education course given to teachers already employed in RISD in order to prepare them to teach bilingual classes. He testified that a subsequent evaluation of the program showed that although it was effective in introducing teachers to the methodology of bilingual education and preparing them to teach the cultural history and awareness components of the bilingual education program, the course, was a dismal failure in the development of sufficient proficiency in a language other than English to qualify the people for teaching bilingual programs. Although the witnesses familiar with the bilingual teachers in the Raymondville schools did not testify quite as vividly to the program's inadequacy, testimony of those involved in the RISD's program suggested that despite completion of the 100 hour course, some of the district's English speaking teachers were inadequately prepared to teach in a bilingual classroom. Mr. Inez Ibarra, who was employed by the district as bilingual supervisor prior to his appointment to the principalship of L. C. Smith School in 1977, testified in the administrative hearing that he had observed the teachers in the bilingual program at Raymondville and that some of the teachers had difficulty communicating in Spanish in the classroom and that there were teachers in the program who taught almost exclusively in English, using Spanish, at most, one day per week. He also described the evaluation program used to determine the Spanish proficiency of the teachers at the end of the 100 hour course. Teachers were required to write a paragraph in Spanish. Since in completing this task, they were permitted to use a Spanish-English dictionary, Ibarra acknowledged that this was not a valid measure of their Spanish vocabulary. Teachers also read orally from a Spanish language text and answered oral questions addressed to them by the RISD certification committee. There was no formal grading of the examination; the certification committee had no guide to measure the Spanish language vocabulary of the teachers based on their performance on the exam. Thus, it may well have been impossible for the committee to determine whether the teachers had mastered even the 700 word vocabulary the TEA had deemed the minimum to enable a teacher to work effectively in a bilingual elementary classroom. Following the examination, the committee would have an informal discussion among themselves and decide whether or not the teacher was qualified. Mr. Ibarra testified that the certification committee had approved some teachers who were, in his opinion, in need of more training much more than what they were given. 65 The record in this case thus raises serious doubts about the actual language competency of the teachers employed in bilingual classrooms by RISD and about the degree to which the district is making a genuine effort to assess and improve the qualifications of its bilingual teachers. As in any educational program, qualified teachers are a critical component of the success of a language remediation program. A bilingual education program, however sound in theory, is clearly unlikely to have a significant impact on the language barriers confronting limited English speaking school children, if the teachers charged with day-to-day responsibility for educating these children are termed qualified despite the fact that they operate in the classroom under their own unremedied language disability. The use of Spanish speaking aides may be an appropriate interim measure, but such aides cannot, RISD acknowledges, take the place of qualified bilingual teachers. The record in this case strongly suggests that the efforts RISD has made to overcome the language barriers confronting many of the teachers assigned to the bilingual education program are inadequate. On this record, we think a finding to the contrary would be clearly erroneous. Nor can there be any question that deficiencies in the in-service training of teachers for bilingual classrooms seriously undermine the promise of the district's bilingual education program. Until deficiencies in this aspect of the program's implementation are remedied, we do not think RISD can be deemed to be taking appropriate action to overcome the language disabilities of its students. Although we certainly hope and expect that RISD will attempt to hire teachers who are already qualified to teach in a bilingual classroom as positions become available, we are by no means suggesting that teachers already employed by the district should be replaced or that the district is limited to hiring only teachers who are already qualified to teach in a bilingual program. We are requiring only that RISD undertake further measures to improve the ability of any teacher, whether now or hereafter employed, to teach effectively in a bilingual classroom. 66 On the current record, it is impossible for us to determine the extent to which the language deficiencies of some members of RISD's staff are the result of the inadequacies inherent in TEA's 100 hour program (including the 700 word requirement which may be an insufficient vocabulary) or the extent to which these deficiencies reflect a failure to master the material in that course. Therefore, on remand, the district court should attempt to identify more precisely the cause or causes of the Spanish language deficiencies experienced by some of the RISD's teachers and should require both TEA and RISD to devise an improved in-service training program and an adequate testing or evaluation procedure to assess the qualifications of teachers completing this program. 12 67 The third specific area in which plaintiffs claim that RISD programs are seriously deficient is in the testing and evaluation of students having limited English proficiency. Plaintiffs claim first that the language dominance placement test used to evaluate students entering Raymondville schools is inadequate. Although it appears that at the time of the administrative hearing in this case, RISD was not employing one of the language tests approved by the TEA, by the time of the trial in this civil suit RISD had adopted a test approved for this purpose by TEA. None of plaintiffs' expert witnesses testified that this test was an inappropriate one. 13 Thus, we do not think there is any reason to believe that the district is deficient in the area of initial evaluation of students entering the bilingual program. 68 A more difficult question is whether the testing RISD employs to measure the progress of students in the bilingual education program is adequate. Plaintiffs, contend, RISD apparently does not deny, and we agree that proper testing and evaluation is essential in determining the progress of students involved in a bilingual program and ultimately, in evaluating the program itself. In their brief, plaintiffs contend that RISD's testing program is inadequate because the limited English speaking students in the bilingual program are not tested in their own language to determine their progress in areas of the curriculum other than English language literacy skills. Although during the bilingual program Spanish speaking students receive much of their instruction in these other areas in the Spanish language, the achievement level of these students is tested, in part, by the use of standardized English language achievement tests. No standardized Spanish language tests are used. Plaintiffs contend that testing the achievement levels of children, who are admittedly not yet literate in English and are receiving instruction in another language, through the use of an English language achievement test, does not meaningfully assess their achievement, any more than it does their ability, a contention with which we can scarcely disagree. 69 Valid testing of students' progress in these areas is, we believe, essential to measure the adequacy of a language remediation program. The progress of limited English speaking students in these other areas of the curriculum must be measured by means of a standardized test in their own language because no other device is adequate to determine their progress vis-a-vis that of their English speaking counterparts. Although, as we acknowledged above, we do not believe these students must necessarily be continuously maintained at grade level in other areas of instruction during the period in which they are mastering English, these students cannot be permitted to incur irreparable academic deficits during this period. Only by measuring the actual progress of students in these areas during the language remediation program can it be determined that such irremediable deficiencies are not being incurred. The district court on remand should require both TEA and RISD to implement an adequate achievement test program for RISD in accordance with this opinion. If, following the district court's inquiry into the ability grouping practices of the district, such practices are allowed to continue, we assume that Spanish language ability tests would be employed to place students who have not yet mastered the English language satisfactorily in ability groups. 70 Finally plaintiffs contend that test results indicate that the limited English speaking students who participate in the district's bilingual education program do not reach a parity of achievement with students who entered school already proficient in English at any time throughout the elementary grades and that since the district's language program has failed to establish such parity, it cannot be deemed appropriate action under § 1703(f). Although this question was raised at the district court level, no findings were made on this claim. While under some circumstances it may be proper for a court to examine the achievement scores of students involved in a language remediation program in order to determine whether this group appears on the whole to attain parity of participation with other students, we do not think that such an inquiry is, as yet, appropriate with regard to RISD. Such an inquiry may become proper after the inadequacies in the implementation of the RISD's program, which we have identified, have been corrected and the program has operated with the benefit of these improvements for a period of time sufficient to expect meaningful results. 14 71 To summarize, we affirm the district court's conclusion that RISD's bilingual education program is not violative of Title VI; however, we reverse the district court's judgment with respect to the other issues presented on appeal and we remand these issues for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Specifically, on remand, the district court is to inquire into the history of the RISD in order to determine whether, in the past, the district discriminated against Mexican-Americans, and then to consider whether the effects of any such past discrimination have been fully erased. The answers to these questions should, as we have noted in this opinion, illuminate the proper framework for assessment of the merits of the plaintiffs' claims that the ability grouping and employment practices of RISD are tainted by unlawful discrimination. If the court finds that the current record is lacking in evidence necessary to its determination of these questions, it may reopen the record and invite the parties to produce additional evidence. 72 The question of the legality of the district's language remediation program under 20 U.S.C. § 1703(f) is distinct from the ability grouping and teacher discrimination issues. Because an effective language remediation program is essential to the education of many students in Raymondville, we think it imperative that the district court, as soon as possible following the issuance of our mandate, conduct a hearing to identify the precise causes of the language deficiencies affecting some of the RISD teachers and to establish a time table for the parties to follow in devising and implementing a program to alleviate these deficiencies. The district court should also assure that RISD takes whatever steps are necessary to acquire validated Spanish language achievement tests for administration to students in the bilingual program at an appropriate time during the 1981-82 academic year. 73 AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part and REMANDED.