It wasn’t that long ago that the state of Arizona did not recognize, in fact went out of its way to criticize, the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They drew the ire of the African-American community, the prophetic hip hop group Public Enemy, and even the NFL who once relocated the Super Bowl because of the controversy. What were the reasons people gave not to celebrate what is now a nationally recognized federal holiday? Some questioned whether he was worthy of such an honor even though he is recognized by many as the greatest American citizen of the twentieth century. Others continued to insinuate he was an undercover communist, and was, therefore, ineligible for such an honor. Still others critiqued his stance on the Vietnam War and what that meant about his patriotism. But underneath all of that rhetoric, which is all highly questionable by any student of King’s life, laid the fact that America was about to honor a Black man with a national holiday, and Arizona was at the forefront of this backlash.
Yeah, how dare people take a critical look at the life of a man, even one who did good things. After all, the US has had many good people who don't have national or state holidays. And if you do, well, your actually a racist.
A typical tired liberal tirade.
However, it is important to point out that Arizona (and Gov. Jan Brewer) has recently banned ethnic studies classes,
The Sojo writer provides a link here, and I followed that link to a Huffpo article. This is what it says.
Under the ban, sent to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer by the state legislature Thursday, schools will lose state funding if they offer any courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."
So, this is bad? The Sojo writer is up in arms because schools can't have those kinds of classes? That's considered "banned ethnic studies classes"?
And, finally, this.
Department of Education has imposed new regulations about the amount of an accent teachers can have and which students they can teach.
And, again, mentioned in the Huffpo article.
Meanwhile, in a move that was more covert until the Wall Street Journal uncovered it, the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.
And, from the Wall Street Journal article.
State education officials say the move is intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly. But some school principals and administrators say the department is imposing arbitrary fluency standards that could undermine students by thinning the ranks of experienced educators.
"The teacher obviously must be fluent in every aspect of the English language," said Adela Santa Cruz, director of the Arizona education-department office charged with enforcing standards in classes for students with limited English.
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.
Nearly half the teachers at Creighton, a K-8 school in a Hispanic neighborhood of Phoenix, are native Spanish speakers. State auditors have reported to the district that some teachers pronounce words such as violet as "biolet," think as "tink" and swallow the ending sounds of words, as they sometimes do in Spanish.
Yeah, how evil, that Arizona is requiring that it's English-learning students actually be taught by teachers who can speak English well.
Seriously, all of this simply liberal straw-grasping.
And the most laughable line of all...
This is not an exercise in Arizona bashing,...
When you can't even lie convincingly, people won't believe you.
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