More than 1,500 teachers in Arizona have already been evaluated to see if they can speak English fluently, and some have been found to have problems but none have been removed from the classroom, a state Department of Education official said.
It’s been in the news lately that Arizona school districts are under orders from the state’s Department of Education to remove from classrooms teachers who speak English with a very heavy accent or whose speech is ungrammatical. Evaluators go into schools to audit teachers on comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing.
I wrote recently about this issue, saying that students certainly deserve teachers whom they can easily understand, but the trick is in how to fairly judge who shouldn’t be in the classroom.
(I also reported on a study which concluded that students learn a second language better from a teacher who speaks in the same accent as they do.)
In an effort to learn more about Arizona’s initiative, I asked the department details on the history and evaluation methods.
Spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico said that the audits have been going on for a few years as part of an effort to comply with state and U.S. law. She cited the No Child Left Behind law, which requires that any district taking federal funds should certify that all teachers of English language learners must be” fluent in English and any other language used for instruction, including having written and oral communications skills.”
The Answer Sheet—Washington Post
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