Opinion ID: 3051186
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: HB 2064 and Actual Compliance

Text: Perhaps recognizing the flaws in HB 2064, the Superintendent and Legislative Intervenors begin by arguing that the 1868 FLORES v. HORNE legality of the statute should not have been considered. That issue, they contend, was “outside” of our mandate on remand. [16] The contention makes no sense. HB 2064 was enacted as Arizona’s effort to comply with the Declaratory Judgment and was so represented to the district court. That this characterization of HB 2064 is correct is indicated in the statute itself, which provides that it will not go fully into effect unless the district court approves the statute as in compliance with its orders. It would be very strange if, on remand, our mandate to survey relevant changes of circumstances excluded such an obvious change. Certainly, no portion of our mandate forbade such consideration. “[A]lthough lower courts are obliged to execute the terms of a mandate, they are free as to anything not foreclosed by the mandate.” United States v. Kellington, 217 F.3d 1084, 1092 (9th Cir. 2000) (quotation omitted). We remanded for the district court to hold an evidentiary hearing and explicitly decided no other issue. The district court held such a hearing.48 There is no further mandate issue in this case.49 48 The Superintendent also argues that the district court generally disobeyed the mandate by not making adequate findings of fact and conclusions of law. We disagree. Although the Superintendent might wish that the district court had made different findings and conclusions, the district court nonetheless fulfilled its task sufficiently to satisfy the mandate. 49 Nor are there problems of ripeness or of forum. True, as the Superintendent and Legislative Intervenors note, it is highly unusual for questions of state compliance with federal school funding law to come before a court in the first instance. The Department of Education has an extensive administrative hearing apparatus, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1234 et seq., and such cases would ordinarily originate there. Here, however, HB 2064 was presented to the district court as a ground for relief from judgment, and on its face became fully effective only if approved by the district court. As part of its inquiry, the court necessarily had to determine whether, on its face, HB 2064 satisfied the requirements of federal law; if not, the problems it was designed to solve would only be exacerbated. Thus, there are no forum problems here and, as HB 2064 became effective immediately, save for the Group B weights, there is no ripeness issue. FLORES v. HORNE 1869 Proceeding to the merits of the HB 2064 issue, we hold that the district court’s conclusions of law regarding the statute were not abuses of its discretion.50 The court held that HB 2064’s two-year funding cut-off was irrational, rendering it inadequate to comply with the judgment and that, in addition, several facial violations of federal law further compounded the statute’s problems. Flores XI, 480 F. Supp. 2d at 1166. We agree.51 For similar reasons, the Legislative Intervenors’ contention that the district court should have certified the question of HB 2064’s interpretation to the Arizona Supreme Court is not well taken. They do not propound any substantial question of interpretation that would justify certification, instead only asserting generally that the statute might be “unclear.” Yet, under Arizona law, a certification order must set forth “[t]he questions of law to be answered.”ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 12-1863. Moreover, the argument was raised for the first time in their reply brief and such arguments are “generally deemed waived.” United States v. Anderson, 472 F.3d 662, 668 (9th Cir. 2006). 50 Because the Superintendent and Legislative Intervenors argue that the district court should not have considered the legality of HB 2064 at all on remand, they do not directly argue that HB 2064 satisfies the judgment and so come close to waiving that argument entirely. But because they do argue in the alternative that the district court’s decisions on HB 2064 were substantively wrong, they have preserved the issue, and we will consider it. 51 Whether the district court could have declared Arizona to be in compliance immediately upon the passage of HB 2064 even if the law was facially appropriate is not entirely clear, although we do not decide the matter. Under the Castaneda framework adopted by the district court: If a school’s program, although premised on a legitimate educational theory and implemented through the use of adequate techniques, fails, after being employed for a period of time sufficient to give the plan a legitimate trial, to produce results indicating that the language barriers confronting students are actually being overcome, that program may, at that point, no longer constitute appropriate action as far as that school is concerned. Castaneda, 648 F.2d at 1010. HB 2064 itself suggested that the court might allow the statute to be implemented “on an interim basis . . . to determine whether the resulting ELL plans and available funding to implement the plans bear a rational relationship to the cost of implementing appropriate language acquisition programs.” HB 2064 § 15(A). 1870 FLORES v. HORNE [17] First, and most clearly, HB 2064’s two-year funding cut-off alone renders the law inadequate as a funding scheme rationally grounded in the costs of providing ELL programs, as the district court held. Flores XI, 480 F. Supp. 2d at 1166. There is absolutely no evidence in the record to support the proposition that a student’s need for ELL programs invariably vanishes after two years of instruction: Instead the evidence is squarely to the contrary, as all witnesses testified that some students would certainly take longer than two years to become proficient in English. Yet funding for both the Group B weights and the Arizona structured English immersion fund is unavailable after two years. See ARIZ. REV. STAT. §§ 15756.01(J), HB 2064 § 6. All that remains thereafter is compensatory instruction funding, see ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 15756.11, which cannot be used to support “normal classroom instruction.” ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 15-756.11(G). To cut funding to children who have not yet learned English after two years of instruction, providing only for compensatory instruction — which cannot occur during class-time and so leaves the incremental costs of assistance for such children during the regular school day unfunded — cannot comply with the judgment. The district court did not abuse its discretion by holding HB 2064 inadequate in this regard. Second, as we have discussed above, the district court did not clearly err in holding that HB 2064’s Group B weight increase alone was not sufficient to meet the incremental costs of ELL programming. Flores XI, 480 F. Supp. 2d at 1162. The two grant programs created by HB 2064 might, however, be able to make up the gap between the incremental costs and the Group B weights, as the district court found, id., and so these secondary programs become important to our analysis. It is, first, important to note that these grant programs will be of no significance at all unless they are funded and, as we have noted, the statute does not require that any appropriations be made for either program in coming years, although it does provide an initial appropriation for the compensatory FLORES v. HORNE 1871 instruction fund. But even if the programs are funded, they do not well serve Arizona’s effort at compliance. Specifically, the district court held that HB 2064 cannot comply with the judgment because its grant programs violate several provisions of federal education funding law. Id. at 1166. Penalties for such violations include limitations on further grants and, in some cases, requirements that states pay back some or all of the grants they have already received. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1234 et seq. If such violations are present, HB 2064 cannot be adequate relief. Its implementation would imperil federal funds for both non-ELL and ELL students. [18] The clearest violation of federal law discussed by the district court is the state’s violation of 20 U.S.C. § 7902, which, covering all of the pertinent federal grant programs, provides that “[a] State shall not take into consideration payments under this chapter (other than under subchapter VIII) in determining the eligibility of any local educational agency in that State for State aid, or the amount of State aid, with respect to free public education of children.” The Declaratory Judgment in this case is directed at the funds distributed by the state to local educational agencies, so § 7902 is applicable. And HB 2064 manifestly requires that federal funds be considered with regard to distribution of funds from both the structured English immersion fund, see ARIZ. REV. STAT. §§ 15-756.01(I)(1)-(3), and the compensatory instruction fund, see ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 15-756.11(E).52 HB 2064 therefore violates 20 U.S.C. § 7902 on its face. The Legislative Intervenors offer only one counterargument on this point, which we do not find persuasive: 52 The district court so held only with regard to the Arizona structured English immersion fund. Compensatory instruction fund monies, however, may not be allocated to “supplant any federal . . . monies . . . budgeted for [E]nglish language learners as of February 23, 2006.” ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 15-756.11(E). That provision is therefore also in violation of federal law. 1872 FLORES v. HORNE They suggest that “free public education,” as used in 20 U.S.C. § 7902, is defined in relation to state law and that, under Arizona law, the term does not apply to ELL programs. So, they contend, 20 U.S.C. § 7902 does not apply to HB 2064’s programs. The federal definition of “free public education” is “education that is provided — (A) at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without tuition charge; and (B) as elementary school or secondary school education as determined under applicable State law, except that the term does not include any education provided beyond grade 12.” 20 U.S.C. § 7801(21). The provision relies only on state law to define “elementary or secondary school education,” not “free public education,” and thus defers to states with regard to which grades are embraced by the definition — not with regard to subject areas or services. That the “as determined under applicable State law” provision applies only to subsection (B) of the definition is indicated by the absence of a comma after “secondary school education;” by the existence of an “except” clause after the “as determined” phrase that pertains directly to subsection (B); and by the absurd results that would flow from the Superintendent and Legislative Intervenors’ reading: Under their interpretation, states could define entire subjects or programs out of the federal funding statute’s reach by changing their state definitions of “free public education.” [19] In any event, we find nothing in Arizona law to suggest that ELL programming is, in any sense, not part of a “free public education” in Arizona. The very existence of HB 2010 and HB 2064, and of the Group B weighting program, indicates otherwise. [20] In sum, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that HB 2064 does not constitute compliance.53 53 The district court also held that HB 2064 facially violates the “supplement not supplant” provisions of many federal education funding statutes. FLORES v. HORNE 1873 [21] We therefore affirm the district court’s holding that HB 2064 does not warrant relief from judgment.54 Indeed, to the extent that improved conditions in NUSD might somewhat support relief from judgment, HB 2064’s flaws largely negate their import: The stark two-year cut-off it creates on all of Arizona’s ELL funding (save for compensatory instruction funds which are no substitute for funding for day-to-day instruction) combined with the very real possibility that the funding scheme may trigger federal enforcement action, may well retard or reverse whatever progress has been made. So, to the extent that circumstances have changed after HB 2064, Flores XI, 480 F. Supp. 2d at 1166. These provisions ensure that federal funds are truly additional to state funds by providing that federal efforts are to add to state programs, rather than simply replacing state funds with federal money without actually increasing existing efforts. See Bennett v. Kentucky Dep’t of Educ., 470 U.S. 656, 659 (1985) (discussing Title I “supplement not supplant” provision); Dep’t of Educ., State of Hawaii v. Bell, 770 F.32 1409, 1413 (9th Cir. 1985) (same). Because the two-year funding cut-off and the violation of 20 U.S.C. § 7902 each alone render HB 2064 insufficient to justify relief from judgment, we need not decide whether the district court correctly decided the “supplement not supplant” question, or whether, as the moving parties argue, it did so prematurely because the local educational entities have not yet spent any money. As we have explained, it is quite uncommon to confront whether a state funding statute complies with federal educational funding law in the first instance. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1234 et seq.; see also Bell v. New Jersey, 461 U.S. 773, 791-92 (1983) (discussing the Department of Education’s auditing process and holding that the “existence and amount of liability [under such provisions] are committed to the agency, in the first instance”). Doing so here was made necessary by the unusual circumstance that HB 2064’s compliance with the Declaratory Judgment turns in part on such questions. But we need not decide more than is required. The somewhat more complicated issues raised by the “supplement not supplant” provisions are not necessary to our inquiry, so we do not decide them. 54 Flores and Arizona argue that HB 2064 also violates federal law by requiring offsets of federal impact aid monies, see generally 20 U.S.C. §§ 7701 et seq., and of school district desegregation monies. Because the district court addressed neither question, we do not reach these issues. 1874 FLORES v. HORNE due to these two flaws they changed in large measure for the worse. We note, however, that the district court has recently spoken again to this issue in its current contempt order, Flores XII, No. CV-92-596 (D. Ariz. Oct. 10, 2007), indicating that, despite HB 2064’s flaws, Arizona may be nearing compliance. In that order, the court again noted the problems with HB 2064 that we have discussed but emphasized that, in its view, they could be cured by abandoning the two-year cut-off and by declining to consider federal funds in the grant-making process. Id. at 3-4. The model-based funding structure of the statute itself, the court held, was not at variance with the Declaratory Judgment, and the incremental costs data that districts are required to submit would, save for the flaws we have noted, enable Arizona “to rationally fund the new models for the ELL programs.” Id. at 4.55 There is reason, then, to hope, if the models are in fact funded and the two changes noted by the district court in its most recent order are made, that this dispute, which has been in the courts longer than it takes a student to go from kindergarten to college, may finally be nearing resolution.