Heavy accents preclude some from teaching in Arizona

I work with a naturalized Romanian and several Filipinas.  Last night they brought up the story of teachers being reassigned or laid off because of their accents. Of course when they told me this story, they didn’t mention that it was teachers being let go, because they didn’t know that part of the story. So this morning I looked for the story, online and found it at the Wall Street Journal.

My daughter’s an elementary school teacher. She teaches immigrant children in a program called ELL – English Language Learner.

About 150,000 of Arizona’s 1.2 million public-school students are classified as English Language Learners. Of the state’s 247 school districts, about 20 have high concentrations of such students, the largest number of which are in the younger grades.

Jane is not supposed to speak Spanish in her classroom in order to teach English to these children.

Needless to say, she’s lost some students in the last couple of weeks, since this law in Arizona was passed. Many of these families are fleeing to California. This has been heartbreaking for her.  But she also sees the need for these people to do things the legal way.

The Journal story emphasis is on teachers from Latin countries who are teaching in Arizona, and speak with a heavy accent (that’s a subjective criteria and even I don’t see how that can be fair – a heavy accent to me might not be to you) and do not speak in a grammatically correct way (I can see the importance of that.)  And Arizona passed a law long ago that English is the language of the classroom and fluency is mandatory: that means grammatically correct.

Ms. Santa Cruz, the state official, said evaluators weren’t looking at accents alone. “We look at the best models for English pronunciation,” she said. “It becomes an issue when pronunciation affects comprehensibility.”

It would be a lot like having a math teacher in the classroom who can’t add or subtract. Teachers must be fluent in English in order to teach our kids. There is no way to be successful in America if you can’t read, write and speak the language. I would never expect to open business or apply for a job in Japan, for cryin’ out loud if I didn’t know the language. This is not hard to understand. A teachers job is to prepare children to be productive members in the American society and if they can’t even speak the language correctly, why would we want to put our children in their hands?

Something to think about

How many of these conditions have now been met in America? How many are about to be met under the Obama administration?

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. If you don’t know what eminent domain is, this is it.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Needs no further explanation.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Death taxes.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. Once again, eminent domain.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.  Since the bailouts, the State owns the banks and the federal reserve.

6. Centralization of a means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. Fairness Doctrine as a control over talk radio. Ownership of the auto industry which, for one thing, will culminate in an attempt to control our mobility.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. Can you spell Green Jobs?

8. Equal liability of all labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Again, Green Jobs, the power of the unions in this administration.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by more equitable distribution of the population over the country

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production. Free public education, we have aleady. Obama’s Americorp initiative, targeting young Americans.

These are the conditions, according to the Communist Manifesto, that must be met in order for a nation (and in Marx dream, the entire world) to transiton from capitalism to communism.

Watch what Obama does, who he appoints and who his “czars” are,  what goals he has set. We’re going to see Marx’ communist manifesto realized before his first term is over.