Arizona Halts Practice of Forcing Action on 'Accented' Teachers

From http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/precollegiate/article_c8aa52c2-e844-5f2a-8264-4ad180a003ea.html

State halts practice of forcing action on 'accented' teachers
August 31, 2011

State education officials will no longer force schools to retrain or reassign English-immersion teachers because they speak with an accent.

In an agreement with two federal agencies, the Arizona Department of Education will stop trying to single out teachers who they believe do not have a good command of the English language - a practice that resulted in complaints the state was illegally discriminating against teachers because they are Hispanic or are not native-English speakers.

But Andrew LeFevre, spokesman for the state agency, said that does not mean schools are free to hire whomever they want.

Instead, LeFevre said, the settlement with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education simply takes the state education agency out of the mix. LeFevre said it will now be up to local school districts to certify their instructors for these classes are, in fact, fluent.

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