Arizona

[asterroc]

In case you missed it the first time, Arizona education is going down the drain, and now there's a second reason. I worry for the baby of a couple friends of mine who live in Arizona.

1) K-12 teachers with "accents" will be "removed" from the classroom. This is based on a misinterpretation of federal law requiring teachers to be "fluent" in English.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2365

2) A new law bans ethnic studies classes, claiming they "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, [and] promote resentment of a particular race or class of people".
http://www.cyberdrumm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26:welcomeunderachieving-schools&catid=6&Itemid=40

I'm looking forward to visiting Arizona in the future, where I'm sure the children will be learning proper British English due to removing all teachers with American accents, and where their minds will not have been sullied by all those White Studies classes. </bitter>

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Both statewide and nationwide education standards always say that topics X, Y, and Z should be taught within the grades A-D. Usual grade breakdowns are K-5, 6-8, 9-12. They do not specify whether students should get X-Z mixed together for each year, or if they should get separate units or Semesters of each, so it is at the discretion of the teachers or school systems, much like math teachers can choose to put all of say literal equations into one semester, or can intersperse it with reading graphs.

I'm not talking about special students here, I'm talking about different interpretations of existing national and state mandated education standards. Where do some random lawmakers get off thinking they knw better then the educators and historians who developed those standards to deliberately allow flexibility in how to present or group the material?

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Well, I did start out by saying I thought it was a stupid thing to legislate. I was just pointing out that I could see a clear justification for the policy beyond merely that the legislators were racist.