Home Press Center Parents Challenge Albuquerque Public Schools in US Court of Appeals

Parents Challenge Albuquerque Public Schools in US Court of Appeals

Sunday, 05 May 2002

Contact: Roger Clegg (703)421-5443     (Denver, CO)The U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argument today in Carbajal v. Albuquerque Public Schools, in which a number of parents are challenging APS’s bilingual education program.  The Center for Equal Opportunity learned of the parents’ complaints and helped find legal counsel for them.      CEO president Linda Chavez said, “The parents challenging the Albuquerque Public Schools’ bilingual education program on behalf of their children are to be applauded for their courage and tenacity.  They are fighting a politically correct but inept bureaucracy that would prefer to segregate Latino children and provide them a substandard education rather than teach them the most important part of any American student’s curriculum—the ability to read and write English fluently.”     The parents assert that the New Mexico Bilingual Multicultural Education Act unconstitutionally classifies children according to national origin and then segregates them into programs with a different substantive curriculum.  They further demonstrate that this discrimination is aggravated by the way in which APS administers the program.      In addition, the parents argue that APS’s bilingual education program fails to teach children English effectively and therefore violates the federal Equal Education Opportunities Act.  Finally, they show that APS’s failure to provide notice to parents when their children are placed in the program violates an agreement between APS and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.     The Center for Equal Opportunity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that focuses on civil rights, bilingual education, and immigration issues nationwide.