Legal Clips, [May 2010]The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English, reports the Wall Street Journal. State education officials say the move is intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly. Some school principals and administrators, on the other hand, say the department is imposing arbitrary fluency standards that could undermine students by thinning the ranks of experienced educators.
The teacher controversy comes amid an increasingly tense debate over immigration. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer this month signed the nation's toughest law to crack down on illegal immigrants. Critics charge that the broader political climate has emboldened state education officials to target immigrant teachers at a time when a budget crisis has forced layoffs. Margaret Dugan, deputy superintendent of the state's schools, disagreed, saying that critics were "politicizing the educational environment."
In the 1990s, Arizona hired hundreds of teachers whose first language was Spanish as part of a broad bilingual-education program. Many were recruited from Latin America. Then in 2000, voters passed a ballot measure stipulating that instruction be offered only in English. Bilingual teachers who had been instructing in Spanish switched to English. Dugan said some schools hadn't been complying with the state law that made English the only language in the classroom. "Our job is to make sure the teachers are highly qualified in fluency of the English language. We know districts that have a fluency problem," she said. Arizona's enforcement of fluency standards is based on an interpretation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. That law states that for a school to receive federal funds, students learning English must be instructed by teachers fluent in the language. Defining fluency is left to each state, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education said. "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.
The education department has dispatched evaluators to audit teachers across the state on things such as comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing.
Teachers that don't pass muster may take classes or other steps to improve their English; if fluency continues to be a problem, Ms. Santa Cruz said, it is up to school districts to decide whether to fire teachers or reassign them to mainstream classes not designated for students still learning to speak English. However, teachers shouldn't continue to work in classes for non-native English speakers. John Hartsell, spokesman for the Arizona Education Association, a union that represents 34,000 teachers, said the recent focus on fluency was a distraction from more important issues. "This is not the time to be pressuring districts to deal with accents that have nothing to do with quality teaching; we are trying to figure out how to best fund operations," he said. State education officials deny any discrimination against teachers, saying they are acting in students' best interest.
Source: Wall Street Journal, 4/30/10, By Miriam Jordan
[Editor’s Note: Citing the crucial importance of meeting the needs of students and supporting their success in school, Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA) Executive Director Panfilo Contreras expressed concern that “the [new immigration] law will create a chilling effect that will make some parents hesitant to send their children to school, even if those children are eligible to attend Arizona public schools, thus inhibiting such opportunities for success.” ASBA reports that Director of Legal Services Chris Thomas is conferring with school and civil rights attorneys to ascertain the ramifications of the law for schools and to prepare guidance. ASBA notes that the law does not require school districts to ask new students or their parents whether they are citizens, or to request immigration documentation. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyer v. Doe, ASBA explains, public schools must educate children regardless of their immigration status or their parents’, and arguably may not inquire as to status. In June 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported on the effect on school administrators in Grand Island, Nebraska, Marshalltown, Iowa, and Worthington, Minnesota when federal immigration officers raided meatpacking plants. The article pointed out that school district administrators responded to the raids as they would to a natural disaster by developing an emergency response plan that would ensure the safety of students whose parents were detained in raids. The article noted that while immigration agents usually leave schools alone, there is no rule barring them from picking up parents during morning drop-off. ASBA Executive Director Panfilo’s statement, as reported in KVOA.com, is at the first link below. ASBA’s web page addressing the new immigration statute appears at the second link below. A summary of the 2007 Wall Street Journal article is available at the third link below. See the fourth link below for the NSBA publication, Legal Issues for School Districts Related to the Education of Undocumented Children, co-authored by Lisa Soronen, senior staff attorney, NSBA, and John W. Borkowski, Partner, Hogan & Hartson, LLC (now Hogan Lovells).]
ASBA statement on Arizona immigration law
ASBA page on Arizona immigration law
NSBA School Law pages on immigration raids
Legal Issues for School Districts Related to the Education of Undocumented Children