Segregation and English Language Learners: From Mendez to Flores

• In Event: Flores v. Arizona: Legal, Political, and Pedagogical Implications for English Language Learners

Abstract

This paper will place Flores v. Arizona (2009, 2013) within the broader context of legal challenges related to language rights in public schooling in the United States, beginning with the Mexican American school segregation cases in the Southwest (e.g., Mendez v. Westminster (1946), Gonzales v. Sheely (1951). The second part of the analysis will address contemporary patterns of segregation in Arizona schools by analyzing school level data on race, language, and student achievement.

The conceptual framework for the analysis draws from Ruiz's (1984) framework of language orientations which I expand drawing on the insights of critical race theorists who have explored the racialization of language (e.g., Perea, 1992; Rodriguez, 2006). I analyze legal documents including judicial opinions and trial transcripts, which I supplement with policy documents where relevant. The legal analysis will be complemented by a descriptive analysis of state education data (2010-2011) including school-level demographic data that allows me to disaggregate ELLs by race and home language, which I matched to school achievement data. I will calculate segregation indexes by race and language and map segregation and achievement patterns in metropolitan Phoenix and Nogales (the focal district in the Flores case) using GIS.

The legal analysis will highlight how the trajectory of the lower court’s decisions in Flores (2000-07) are tightly aligned with the dominant language orientation in the period after Lau v. Nichols (1974), which I describe as language-as-barrier: ELL students have the right to supports that will allow them to access to curricula and other educational experiences aimed at increasing their English fluency. However, the Supreme Court’s (2009) decision departed from this well-established legal tradition by focusing on not on ELL students’ rights but on the right of state officials to set policies for public schools.

In 2008, the state implemented a curriculum for ELL students statewide which requires ELL students to be placed in a daily four-hour English language development block. In its decision, the lower court observed that “the academic content [in the ELD block] provided to ELL students is not the same, and is less than, what is provided to English proficient students,” and that the state does not have provisions to ensure that these students are not “deprived of academic content” (Flores v. Arizona, 2013, p. 9-10). However, given the narrow parameters of Horne v. Flores (2009), the court had little choice but to accept the state’s model for ELL instruction as adequate.

The analysis of demographic and achievement data will focus on the segregation and academic achievement of Arizona’s ELL students, both issues engaged by the lower court’s most recent decision (2013).

Author

• Jeanne M. Powers, Arizona State University