New York, for example, all have similar language about the native
language skills of any teacher, which include phrases such as
“demonstrates excellent skills of pronunciation and grammar” and “carries
out instruction in content areas of the curriculum using a standard variety
of the native language” (New Mexico guidelines, effective July 1, 1989).
Whether or not this latter expectation is realistic or enforceable is never
addressed.
While the official pronunciation and accent test once administered by
New York City to prospective teachers is no longer used, such policies
have been employed elsewhere: in the 1970s, speakers of Chicano English
were still failing the speech test required for teacher certification in
California (Pelosa 1981: 8), while in 2010 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer
signed a controversial Anti-immigration Act into law. As a result, the
Board of Education initiated a purge that would remove teachers with
“heavy accents” from classrooms. These measures were met with great
enthusiasm by Tom Horne, Superintendent of Public Instruction, who had
long been agitating for the exclusion of ethnic studies from those Tucson
schools where Mexican American students were rude to him and critical of
his administration. Note that it is on the basis of his dislike of a “small
group of students” that he argues for abandonment of the entire Ethnic
Studies curriculum. Note also the blatant partisanship:
An open letter to the citizens of Tucson ...
The citizens of Tucson, of all mainstream political ideologies, would
call for the elimination of the Tucson Unified School District’s ethnic
studies program if they knew what was happening there ... I
personally observed this at the Tucson Magnet School. My Deputy,
Margaret Garcia Dugan, who is Latina and Republican, came to refute
the allegation made earlier to the student body, that “Republicans hate
Latinos.” Her speech was non-partisan and professional, urging
students to think for themselves, and avoid stereotypes. Yet, a small
group of La Raza [Ethnic studies] students treated her rudely, and
when the principal asked them to sit down and listen, they defiantly