ABSTRACT
Significant federal and state policies that address participation in targeted educational programming along with funding, standards, language and academic assessments and related accountability domains have been an attribute of and have directly influenced Latino English Language Learners' (ELLs') educational experiences for decades in the United States. This chapter enunciates the extreme level of inequality that exists in Arizona for Latinos and Latino ELLs. It builds a working conceptual framework that merges intersectionality of language, class and ethnicity and policy analysis as an analytical tool to understand the nuanced, multilayered, compounded educational inequality encountered by low-income, Latino Spanish-speaking students in Arizona K–12 public schools as a function of intersecting educational policies. The language-of-instruction issue has been the most intensely debated aspect of the education policy and practice for ELLs in K–12 settings for decades and is often politically charged. The chapter provides a holistic and comprehensive framing through the sub context of Flores and its iterations as a case study.
