1. SEI in Arizona: Bastion for States’ Rights

Language Ideology Change Over Time: Lessons for Language Policy in the U.S. State of Arizona and Beyond

“…In Arizona, empirical research supports a model in which language ideologies interact with language management and language practices to create educational language policy. The wide circulation of language ideologies rooted in misperceptions about language learning processes (Combs et al., ) and English‐only sentiment have been associated with the development of the current body of restrictive policy in Arizona (Lillie & Moore, ). Using ethnographic research methods, E. J. Johnson and Johnson () contrasted local educational language policy practices in the U.S. states of Washington and Arizona.…”

“…What's more, this number of students is set to increase under the terms of a recent agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Arizona Department of Education in which it was agreed that students have been underidentified for and exited preemptively from language support services since 2007. The educational language policies in Arizona are embodied in a structured English immersion (SEI) model—known as the 4‐hour model—that is mandatory for all Arizona ELs (Lillie & Moore, ).…”

“…The idea that the 4‐hour model would accelerate language acquisition so that students would be proficient in 1 year has been widely criticized by scholars (e.g., Lillie, ; Newcomer & Collier, ), as has the elimination of any native‐language support (e.g., Combs, Evans, Fletcher, Parra, & Jiménez, ; Gándara & Hopkins, ). Additional work examining the effects of the policy has found that the model negatively affects ELs’ graduation aspirations by limiting the ability to accumulate content credits (Lillie & Markos, ) and that the segregation of ELs from the mainstream population is a major concern for both teachers and students (Heineke & Cameron, ; Iddings, Combs, & Moll, ; Lillie & Moore, ). This combination of effects (i.e., student segregation and limited access to the curriculum) has led many to decry the policy from a civil rights perspective (Combs et al., ; Gándara & Hopkins, ; Iddings et al., ).…”

Wiping Away the “Veneer of Democracy” to Expose the School-Level Effects of Arizona’s Language Policy

“…WIPING AWAY THE "VENEER OF DEMOCRACY" 6 Many scholars (e.g., Adamson & Long, 2012;Faltis & Arias, 2012;Hogan, 2014;Jimenez-Silva et al, 2014;Leckie et al, 2013;Lillie & Moore, 2014;Wiley, 2012) argued that Arizona's SEI model and ELD program's strict emphasis on English-only instruction not only excludes immigrant students and their families from schooling, but also augments the cultural boundary between linguistically diverse students and monolingual students. Marschall, Rigby, & Jenkins (2011) concurred that language policies such as Arizona's seek to "isolate, alienate, and stigmatize immigrants and their children" (p. 590).…”

“…that English needed to be taught (Lillie & Moore, 2014). While these concepts explain how norms become embedded, poststructuralist theories on agency provide entry into reconceptualizing and rupturing inequitable structures.…”