The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Arizona officials who said the federal government should not be supervising the state's spending for teaching non-English-speaking students.

Since 2000, when a federal district judge found that the state's minimal spending on instruction for English language learners violated the federal Equal Educational Opportunity Act, the state has substantially changed its programs, increasing financing, reducing class sizes and moving from bilingual education to structured English immersion.

The state public instruction superintendent, Tom Horne, asked to be released from court supervision, arguing that Arizona had made such progress with its English language programs that it was no longer warranted...