Monday, May 3, 2010

Today in Reasons the Rest of the Country Is Starting to Wonder About Arizona

Posted By on Mon, May 3, 2010 at 7:55 PM

This is already old news, but I'm pretty sure it never made it onto the Range. From the Huffington Post:

Arizona's new immigration law is just about crime, its supporters say, but given that the state's new education policy equates ethnic studies programs with high treason, they may not be using the commonly accepted definition of "crime."

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."

Legislators have somehow grouped promoting the overthrow of the U.S. government with ethnic studies classes, and Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American studies department is specifically mentioned as a target of the new restrictions.

The story also links to a Wall Street Journal story about a new law that could ban Arizona teachers with heavy accents from teaching English classes. The story goes on to say that the law is especially ironic being that the state spent the last decade recruiting teachers who speak English as a second language.

It's going to take a public-relations miracle to resurrect the state's image after all this.

Update: The Arizona Daily Star is reporting that Tucson Unified School District has no plans of changing its curriculum as a result of the law.