ACLU-DE Issues Legal Warning to State Officials on Behalf of Multi-Language Learners in Public Schools

Statewide — Today the ACLU of Delaware sent a letter to state officials, demanding they address the funding deficit leading to violations of the constitutional rights of multi-language learners (MLLs) in Delaware public schools. The letter points to the State’s legal obligations to provide all students with an adequate education, as well as outcomes from the 2018 Delawareans for Educational Opportunity v. Carney lawsuit that mandated the establishment of Opportunity Funding for MLL and low-income students. Due to multiple years of inaction from the State, ACLU-DE states it is prepared to take state officials back to court if immediate action is not taken to remedy the situation.

An additional outcome of the 2018 lawsuit was the commission of an independent report by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to provide an unbiased expert evaluation of Delaware’s public school funding program. The AIR report, which was published in 2023, revealed that Delaware has been inadequately funding MLLs and other vulnerable students by as much as $1 billion.

Learning outcomes for MLL students in Delaware have been dramatically impacted by underfunding in public schools around the state.

Across the past four school years, the general Delaware student population has lagged behind statewide progress goals in Mathematics by an average of 23.47% and in Language Arts by an average of 25.77%. During the same period, the MLL student population suffered a deficit of almost double that: an average of 50.18% behind their goal in English Language Arts and 42.93% behind their goal in Mathematics. Year by year, Delaware MLLs have produced educational outputs indicative of a severely underfunded learning environment. Based on this data, there is no legitimate dispute that Delaware has severely and harmfully underfunded the education of multi-language learners in our state.

MLL students in all three counties and across all 19 Delaware school districts are victims of this insufficient funding. These students, many of whom descend from countries with primary languages other than English, are often isolated in their schools. Delaware's education system has failed to adequately recruit and train administrators and educators to appropriately assist MLL students. This results in MLL students receiving insufficient instruction on core subjects and having limited pathways for seeking support.

“Denying students who speak multiple languages access to an adequate education is a denial of their rights under the Delaware Constitution,” states Oluwatobi Omotoso, ACLU-DE Education Equity Fellow. “The State’s inaction when it comes to addressing the needs of marginalized students is embarrassing and unacceptable. Delaware students deserve better.”

Omotoso continued: “Advocates have waited for decades for these issues to be remedied, and it has been over five years since our last lawsuit was settled and three years since the independent report provided a road map for officials to solve these issues. Delaware students cannot wait any longer. To avoid a lawsuit, the state of Delaware must remedy these violations immediately.”