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Thursday, June 23, 2016

Civil rights complaint alleges discrimination in MCPS language immersion programs

A former Obama administration White House aide has filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Montgomery County school system, alleging discrimination against his daughter and other children of color in the district’s highly popular language-immersion programs.
Will Jawando, who also worked for the U.S. Department of Education and recently lost a race for Congress in the Democratic primary, argues in the complaint that the high-performing Maryland school district is violating federal law in the way it recruits and selects its language immersion students.
The school system fails to publicize the opportunities in areas with high percentages of black and Hispanic students — or to “conduct meaningful outreach” — and many parents are unaware that such options exist, according to the complaint, which Jawando filed this week.
“As a result, many of the high-demand language immersion programs enroll disproportionately high numbers of white, non-poor students, while denying benefits of the program to otherwise interested and qualified students of color and those from lower-income families,” it says.
The complaint asks the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate and requests that the school system be required to enter into an agreement to expand access to, and better serve, African American and Hispanic students in elementary language immersion and other special academic programs...

...Jawando plans to gather with other affected families at a news conference Thursday outside school system offices in Rockville...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/civil-rights-complaint-alleges-discrimination-in-language-immersion-programs/2016/06/23/43ba2670-3864-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html#comments

3 comments:

  1. There'll be a litigation
    For this abomination
    To get equitable selection
    In the language immersion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What? Not in our progressive county with our world-class school system. Mr. Jawando must be thinking of someplace else.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
      ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

      Delete

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