Still More Arizona Controversy: This Time It's Teachers With Accents


Still More Arizona Controversy: This Time It's Teachers With Accents

posted by: Natasha G. 10 hours ago
Still More Arizona Controversy: This Time It's Teachers With Accents

Arizona is on a roll. First the government passed a law permitting police to ask for legal documentation of anyone who "appears to look illegal," then it banned schools from offering ethnic studies. Now the Arizona Department of Education has told schools they should remove any teachers whose speech is "heavily accented or ungramatical" from English classes.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in the 1990s Arizona hired many teachers whose first language is Spanish as part of its billingual education program. In 2000, citizens voted that only English be taught in schools, and teachers were required to switch languages accordingly. But now that teachers have made the switch, why they are being punished for something they cannot control?

Overlooking the fact that in reality everyone has an accent, the Department of Education did not specify what sort of accent is unacceptable. However one can make a good guess considering so many foreign-born teachers in Arizona are from Latin America. Would teachers with strong Texan, Bostonian or Canadian accents be removed? And how does one measure how heavy an accent is?

The principal of an elementary school with a large Latino population in Phoenix told the Wall Street Journal that the school's teachers "are very good educators who understand the culture" of their students...I object to the nuance of punishment for accent."

An accent does not indicate a person's grasp of a language. If Arizona wants to ensure children are learning, the Department of Education should focus on the qualifications of a teacher that are actually relevant to the job.
Read more: arizonaeducation

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