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The Associated Press
01.31.2006
By PAUL DAVENPORT Tucson, Arizona | Published: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/113820.php
PHOENIX - Trying to break a stalemate that has resulted in daily $500,000
fines against the state, Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano sent the
Republican-led Legislature a letter Tuesday offering revised proposals on
instruction of students learning the English language and a proposed
school-choice tax credit.
Napolitano's four-page letter included elements from Republican-sponsored
English Language Learning bills that she's vetoed as well as from a
Democratic plan that Napolitano supports but which hasn't gotten a hearing
at the Legislature.
The letter suggests that a proposed tax credit for business donations for
private school tuition grants for ELL students be put into a separate bill,
and Napolitano lists provisions that she says it should include to provide
accountability.
"I urge you to seriously consider these proposals so that the state can
comply with federal laws governing English Language Learners and so that we
may put these issues behind us and begin to address the other matters
pending this session," Napolitano wrote.
Napolitano and Republicans have been at odds for months over how to satisfy
court orders resulting from a class-action lawsuit originally filed in 1992.
A 2000 court order by a federal judge said current programs for
approximately 150,000 ELL students violated federal laws for equal
opportunities in education.
More recently, a judge ordered the Legislature to spend more money on
education for students learning English by a deadline that passed earlier
this month or face fines beginning at $500,000 a day. The fines started Jan.
25 and totaled $3 million through Monday.
The Republican bill vetoed by Napolitano would scrap the state's current
approach of providing extra dollars for each ELL student and institute a new
system in which districts would have to select among instruction models
approved by the state and then use a state formula to get funding, with
reductions for dollars available from other sources.
Napolitano has said she vetoed the latest Republican bills because they
didn't provide the necessary improvements in ELL programs and because
Republicans included the tax credit.
Republicans say their approach improved accountability of public school
programs while providing an incentive for improvement through competition
with private schools. They inserted the tax credit into the ELL bill after
Napolitano vetoed a similar school-choice measure not specifically aimed at
ELL students
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