Arizona ups the ante in insanity

[DaemonSeid]

After making national headlines for a new law on illegal immigrants, the Arizona Legislature passed a bill Thursday that would ban ethnic studies programs in the state that critics say currently advocate separatism and racial preferences.

The bill, which passed 32-26 in the state House, had been approved by the Senate a day earlier. It now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.

The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach 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."

The bill stipulates that courses can continue to be taught for Native American pupils in compliance with federal law and does not prohibit English as a second language classes. It also does not prohibit the teaching of the Holocaust or other cases of genocide.

Schools that fail to abide by the law would have state funds withheld.


link

[LucyKKG]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach 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."

Wtf? Ok, half of that sounds good but half is BS. Oh Arizona. Really now?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government . . . .

Has this been a problem in Arizona? Do some schools have courses in Beginner Sedition?

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Has this been a problem in Arizona?

I was thinking the same thing.

I wonder if "African American Studies" or similar courses are affected by this. They don't necessarily exist for specific ethnic groups, buuuut...

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

I was thinking the same thing.

I wonder if "African American Studies" or similar courses are affected by this. They don't necessarily exist for specific ethnic groups, buuuut...

Good bye learning about Civil Rights Movement.

[Kevin]

What is the rational basis for this classification?

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by Kevin

What is the rational basis for this classification?

I'm going out on a limb here, and say that I'm thinking this is to keep the people who start neo-nazi groups from leaving Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and taking up residence in Arizona. I'm talking about the Ruby Ridge people and such.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by honeychile

I'm going out on a limb here, and say that I'm thinking this is to keep the people who start neo-nazi groups from leaving Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and taking up residence in Arizona. I'm talking about the Ruby Ridge people and such.

Oh Honey I just spit iced tea all over my computer screen! That cracked me up, obviously... because they are already HERE. Gah! They've been here for a long time. And don't forget about the polygamists. We have LOTS of those too, up on the AZ-Utah border.

First - yes, ethnic studies classes are a huge bone of contention in the state. Our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, has been mixing it up with, specifically, the La Raza proponents in the Tucson Unified School District, for more than a year. Tucson is a hotbed for his attacks. It was quite ugly a year ago and has been simmering and now is boiling over.

I love how the legislature can't balance the budget and yet they make laws about speaking ability of teachers. Where's the money coming from for these auditors? Fund education, for crying out loud.

Honestly, this is going way past crazy. What's next? I can only imagine.

Just when I think it can't get any worse for AZ, it gets worse. It's gonna be a long, hot summer. I think I'll go to Colorado and hide out in the mountains.

[honeychile]

[QUOTE=AzTheta;1923633]Oh Honey I just spit iced tea all over my computer screen! That cracked me up, obviously... because they are already HERE. Gah! They've been here for a long time. And don't forget about the polygamists. We have LOTS of those too, up on the AZ-Utah border.QUOTE]

*blush* Well, I obviously flunked my "Know Your Wackos" test! I know we have some of the nutjobs, but most of ours are into puppy mills. Well, unless you count those who the late Murtha said cling to their Bibles and their guns. I have a gun, I have a Bible. I've never cuddled my gun.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by honeychile

I'm going out on a limb here, and say that I'm thinking this is to keep the people who start neo-nazi groups from leaving Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and taking up residence in Arizona. I'm talking about the Ruby Ridge people and such.

The majority of white supremacists are gone from Idaho, weren't from here to begin with, and now live in other places. The Aryan Nation compound has been gone since 2000.

I'd be more concerned with the hate groups in your state http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=PA than in my state http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=ID Wyoming http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=WY and Montana http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=MT combined, where do you think they moved when they left here? Closer to you than me. New York and Ohio have more than Pennsylvania, when we stopped putting up with their crap they had to move somewhere.

[Little32]

What with this and the way those Texans are picking and choosing which historical figures and what events they will teach about, I weep for the next generation of learners. Seriously.

I can't even wrap my mind around the absurdity of this bill. It is sublime.

[thetygerlily]

Wow. I thought this was going to be an Onion article when I first started reading the post. As an anthropology major and as a human being who enjoys learning about others... this is sad.

Maybe Arizona is just trying to set the stage for seceding from the US and becoming its own country. "You don't like our laws? Fine, we don't like yours. It's over- we are breaking up!"

[ThetaDancer]

I also saw this article today in the Wall Street Journal about interesting education policy in Arizona. I haven't seen it on GC yet, and this thread brought it to mind. There are some interesting things happening in that state right now (to say the least).

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.

[thetygerlily]

^Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. I think the law/policy/whatever means well- I know when I'm learning a language, I am very particular on the accent because I want to get it right. And I do think that a teacher using proper grammar is important. But good intentions are often taken too far. This piece in particular got to me:

The education department has dispatched evaluators to audit teachers across the state on things such as comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing... 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.

So what about Bostonians who pronounce harbor as "haba", southerners that say y'all, or Minnesotans that say you betcha, doncha know, or end questions/statements with eh? I'm overgeneralizing, I know, but still. We have a lot of accents in this country and they come from a lot of different areas of the world.

[ThetaDancer]

Originally Posted by thetygerlily

^Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. I think the law/policy/whatever means well- I know when I'm learning a language, I am very particular on the accent because I want to get it right. And I do think that a teacher using proper grammar is important. But good intentions are often taken too far. This piece in particular got to me:



So what about Bostonians who pronounce harbor as "haba", southerners that say y'all, or Minnesotans that say you betcha, doncha know, or end questions/statements with eh? I'm overgeneralizing, I know, but still. We have a lot of accents in this country and they come from a lot of different areas of the world.

Exactly. I'll be interested in seeing how this is enforced. I agree that students should have teachers that are understandable, but the terms need to be very clearly defined if they're going to be removing teachers from classrooms.