Language law will go to U.S. Supreme Court

BY HOWARD FISCHER, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

February 23, 2008 - 9:53PM

Phoenix - The amount of money Arizona taxpayers have to spend to teach English will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The top Republican legislative leaders said Saturday they want to take the legal dispute to the nation's high court rather than make two changes to the 2-year-old law - changes the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals indicated a day earlier likely would make the statute constitutional.

A federal judge ruled eight years ago Arizona is not complying with federal laws that require that all students have an opportunity to learn English. Prior legislative fixes all were rejected by the courts as inadequate. The 2006 law directed the state Department of Education to set up procedures it determines are the best to teach English to students who come to school speaking another language. Those "models,'' which include a requirement for four hours a day of immersion, were adopted last year.

It is nearly impossible to know how many students along the border, though crossing into the US legally, are attending school illegally because they are not residing in the USA but their parents have bought an address or a utility bill, fraudulently, in order to place their children in US schools illegally. -mm