Se Acabaron Las Palabras: A Post-Mortem Flores v. Arizona Disproportional Funding Analysis of Targeted English Learner Expenditures

Abstract

Arizona has played a large part in the development and implementation of policy that directly inhibits equity of opportunity for the English learner (EL) population, the largest and most damaging of which came out of legislation passed due to the Flores v. Arizona case which concluded in 2015. This research article seeks to critically challenge how Arizona-reified barriers to learning ELs continue to experience. This article serves as a post-mortem to Flores v. Arizona and measures the relationship between targeted EL expenditures as a function of the percentage of ELs within districts. The findings suggest that the scale of ELs within districts is inversely related to targeted EL expenditures. Furthermore, Arizona has reified laws that inhibit EL educational opportunities across the state.

School Finance Reform and the Distribution of Student Achievement

“…Subsequent suits focused on state constitutions, which often mandate adequate and/or equitable systems of public education. 10 790 SW 2d 186. Rose was not the first adequacy ruling, but earlier rulings attracted less attention.…”

A promise kept for whom? College access, success, and the limits of race-neutral tuition-free programs.

“…Racism as an artifact of U.S. history requires us to scrutinize contemporary American policy praxis as an extension of those systems of White settler colonialism that reinforce Indigenous genocide and the persecution of BIPOC communities. Through the attentiveness to the institutional embeddedness of racism, CRT often employs counter storytelling to analyze the inaccuracies of normative White supremacist discourse reliant on deficit-based narratives of BIPOC communities (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Martínez & Spikes, 2020). Counter storytelling allows BIPOC communities to assert asset-based narratives, which differ from and correct deficit-based narratives.…”

“…Through the attentiveness to the institutional embeddedness of racism, CRT often employs counter storytelling to analyze the inaccuracies of normative White supremacist discourse reliant on deficit-based narratives of BIPOC communities (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017;Martínez & Spikes, 2020). Counter storytelling allows BIPOC communities to assert asset-based narratives, which differ from and correct deficit-based narratives.…”

“…Compounding benefits facilitate opportunity hoarding (Tilly, 1998) that shapes schooling disparities, including access to early childhood education, sufficiently resourced schools, gifted and talented programs, advanced coursework, and access to resources and information to support higher education matriculation (Alexander et al, 2014; Baker & Cotto, 2020; Byrd, 2021; Dixon-Román, 2010; Kelly, 2020; Lewis & Diamond, 2015; Martínez & Spikes, 2020; Tyson, 2011; Warikoo, 2022). Research also highlights the intersection of race and class inequity as policies and practices perpetuate disparate opportunity networks and preserve an increasingly unequal schooling system (Calarco, 2018; Lewis-McCoy, 2014; Posey-Maddox, 2014).…”