The American Legislative Exchange Council’s Agenda and Commodity Theory in Flores v. Arizona

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

Abstract

This presentation tries to explain the rationalities behind (Arizona) State’s responsibilities and policies towards its ELLs population as shown through Flores v. Arizona case data. In particular, the project discusses the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) political agenda to advancing the principles of free market enterprise, limited government, and federalism in Arizona and its population. This paper utilizes the scholarship on commodity theory (Brock, 1968; Brock & Brannon, 1992; Worchel, 1992) to illustrate how supra-legislative groups pushing neoliberal political and economic theories of governance render the English language as a commodity based on the free-market principles of scarcity and competition (Donzolot, 2009). The net result produces an environment for second language learners to compete amongst each other for scare resources (e.g. English language) and for opportunities for the future.

Artifacts in the data set include texts from media sources like newspaper articles and press releases that discussed directly about Flores v. Arizona case published from 1992 to 2013, and other texts about ALEC (ALEC websites, ALEC Policy drafts, ALEC Press releases). The texts on ALEC are used and compared to the discourses surrounding Flores v. Arizona case as shown in the newspapers articles and press releases.

The current project is able to trace three main areas of ALEC’s political agenda/imprints in Arizona’s policy as shown in Flores case: 1) ALEC economy and fiscal policy agenda. This includes the rationalities surrounding state tax, budget policy prescriptions, and privatization plans; 2) ALEC’s principle of Federalism; and 3) ALEC’s supports on education policies that emphasize standards and accountability.

ALEC’s economy and fiscal policy agenda govern the money matter in Education: the relationship between how much the money is spent and the education offered, how the State regulates: spends, uses, saves their money, what ‘adequate’ (ELL) program is, how State tax is in relation to education spending, how to define ‘education needs’, and whose interest is protected by the State policy and the mechanism of that protection. While ALEC’s principle of Federalism is responsible for governing the discourses surrounding the responsibility of the State and the Federal and how these two are separate, the role of the (elected) legislature in education policy, the role of courts, and the urge towards self-government and who rules: State vs. Federal laws. Third, ALEC’s supports on education policies that emphasize standards and accountability govern the rationalities for the solution for ELLs including what “best practices” for teaching ELL students are, the making of “successful” student, “successful” program/outcome, and what sound educational theory is.

The scholarly significance of this paper is to illustrate the role that supra-legislative organizations have on state educational policies and to show how rationalities of governance, in particular, neoliberal forms impact second-language learners. Thus, this presentation initiates a discussion about the relationship between political action groups and legislative bodies.

Authors

• Dinny Risri Aletheiani, Arizona State University

• David L. Carlson, Arizona State University