Issues in Special Education

I"ve been working on my SPED law case paper and some of the points really hit home with me. The case I'm working on is Diana vs. Board of Education (1970), and it involves placement of Latinos in a SPED class because they didn't score well on an IQ test because they didn't understand their native language.  The case ruled that children are allowed to take tests in their native language so that they will not be classified as SPED eligible if they are not.  The children took the test over in Spanish and achieved much higher results and were pulled out of SPED classes.
I've been working as a substitute for the past three weeks in all disciplines and all classes are inclusive.  There is a significant amount of Latino students in the classroom and what I have found out is that they read stories out loud about as well, if not better, than half the class.  I asked each one of them when they learned the English language, and most of them told me that they began learning it in Kindergarten. 
To make this story more personal, my wife's family brought over a family from Laos in 1978 during the time when Communism was spreading throughout the region.  There was a sponsorship for children in countries like Laos and my wife's family brought them over so that the three brothers could achieve a better life in America.  They had no familiarity with the English language until they got on the plane to come to America.  Long story short, two of the brothers owned a restaraunt within six years of coming over, and the third went on to graduate from Tennessee Tech's engineering program and is now in charge of engineering for Chattanooga Power Company.  Public dollars for educating these men were spent well since they contribute to our society on many levels.  Luckily for them, they were not enrolled in SPED classes because of their lack of language capabilities.  They were enrolled in elementary school and quickly worked their way up to middle and high school because of their proficiency in math.