Language barriers: Arizonans battle federal court order to spend more.(the legal beat)

Once past the long, agonizing upheaval of school desegregation, the states and their education departments by and large have bent to the federal will. But what happens when they don't? What if instead they see a federal judicial order as a threat to be resisted? Legislative leaders and the twice-elected state superintendent of schools in Arizona are putting these questions to the test in a long-running lawsuit. In Flores v. Arizona, the central issue is how much the state must spend for English language learners (ELL) beyond a basic grant to school districts. This is a heated issue in a state on the Mexican border with a large immigrant population and a Republican party that gave the country Barry Goldwater.

Flores v. Arizona was filed in 1992, a class action brought by an advocacy law firm on behalf of parents in the town of Nogales. The suit rested on the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, which provides that no state shall fail "to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation ... in its instructional programs." In 2000, a federal district judge ruled that Arizona was violating this relatively obscure law, both by not spending enough on its Lau programs--a reference to a Supreme Court decision of 1974 and regulations of the federal Office for Civil Rights--and by failing to provide enough teachers, aides, classrooms, materials, and tutoring. Eight years later, Arizona is spending $430 extra per ELL student per year, but has not satisfied the court. Rather, the legislature challenged the court with a law that would have put a two-year cap on extra spending for any individual ELL student and use federal funds in place of some state funds.

Arizona did not appeal the judgment and signed a consent decree that addressed matters other than spending. The spending issue festered as the politics grew more problematic. In 2000 the electorate approved a ballot initiative that abolished bilingual education and replaced it with English immersion. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who was elected governor in 2002 and reelected in 2006, has battled with Republican state legislators over what to do.

Judge Raner Collins has twice found the state to be in civil contempt. Early in 2006, he imposed a fine of $500,000 per day, to be ...