I wonder if this extends to Literature classes, like African-American, Russian or, oh... English?

"Good English?" - this reminds me of that freshman congressman interviewed by Colbert who was a proponent of displaying the ten commandments on government buildings, but couldn't name them. The commandments that is.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert…

I talk good england!

god forbid they revert to 'the queen's english'..because that is just so very gay...

What about teachers in foreign language classes?

But seriously, the language in that law is so vague... how would you even interpret/enforce it?

Forget "Haver", what kind of name is Johanna?

Ah Ha! I see the Trojan Horse in this law. "The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to... promote resentment of a particular race or class of people." So now the schools can't teach that our ruling class of billionaire military-industrial-media complex plutocrats aren't an evil cancer on our supposedly democratic society. Very sneaky, AZ.

there is a POLL under the photo of the WSJ article asking whether the state should eliminate teachers with accents. It is 60/40 in FAVOR of removing them. Add your vote!!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…

Fuck it, I am getting a gun. Some white people in this country are going crazy.

Just in case there was any doubt that this law is unconstitutional, it's clear that Arizona can't even ban teachers from promoting the overthrow of the U.S. government.

As the Supreme Court has noted:

"The mere abstract teaching of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence [to achieve political change] is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action. A statute which fails to draw this distinction impermissibly intrudes upon the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It sweeps within its condemnation speech which our Constitution has immunized from governmental control."

Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 448 (1968) (internal citations omitted).

My guess would be that Haver is northern European or British Isles... It means "oats" in Dutch.

Top, bottom, giver, pitcher, catcher, receiver... haver. See how that works?

Does disrupt the status quo! Don't let kids learn about how our white founders and ancestors fucked over women and POC and how the rich continue to rape and pillage!

I've been to Arizona.

The "English-speaking" white people that live there don't speak standard US English either.

Guess they're in big trouble. Have you seen their speling on they're siigns that saay Me Am Biiig Tea Bager Protesht Wanker?

So, they are trying to get rid of teachers with accents? New England and the whole South would be screwed by their playbook. And, are they just dying to spend millions on the legal battles that will follow this?

Oh, and Arizona...We didn't cross the border. The border crossed us. They need to stop living in denial.

@8 - there goes employment for all those crackers in the South.

@18 for the historic win.

ummm don't all children belong to one ethnic group or another? it does not specify minority ethnic groups... doesn't that bill kind of make it illegal to design classes for... anyone?
ugh.

I live in Arizona, and I'm one of the locals who advocates a total ban of the state. If your vacation plans happened to involve visiting the Grand Canyon, for instance, change them.

Not all of us like the clear wave of insanity that's taken over our legislature. Unfortunately there's damned little we can do about it.

All I can offer from behind the lines is this. The crackpots are not in the majority. They're just really goddamned loud.

you're crazy if you think the GOP will pay for this in the fall - they have been very carefully gerrymandering every district in the country.

AZ has gone completely down the rabbit hole...... sheesh.....

22, I sympathize with you and all the remaining sane people in the state... Can you guys do some major house (and senate) cleaning this fall, maybe? How long are you beholden to that horrible female governor of yours?

So what happens if a teacher fails to constantly speak good grammar in class? Will he/she really get fired? As if even barely competent teachers are expendable.

I think you're assuming the voters in AZ will actually vote against these legislators based on these bills.

Why don't they just get on with it and outlaw the whole Bill or Rights? Excluding, of course, their beloved Second Amendment. What asses.

Arizona has become to the 2010s what Alabama was to the 1960s.

Congratulations. You should be so proud.

@25: The irony being that to "speak good grammar" is a fail in itself. You can use good grammar when you speak, and you can speak grammatically, but grammar is not a language like Spanish or French. You do not "speak" it.

That bill banning ethnic studies courses amazes me. They have abandoned even the pretense of fairness:

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.
...
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne...claimed the ethnic studies program encourages "ethnic chauvanism," promotes Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States and tries to intimidate conservative teachers in the school system.

Never mind that this guy is the State Superindendent for Public Instruction and he can't even spell "chauvinism". His blatant bigotry is astounding.

How many of you have read the bill? Hmm, didn't think so.

Irena: Love you darlin', but I speak pretty much exactly the way I write. And yeah, that's "good" grammar.

I'm actually mostly in favor of this (and the "illegal immigrant" law as well. And you know, if you've actually read them and know even a little bit about constitutional law, they're a whole lot more constitutional than the media (including Slog - hell, especially Slog - would have you believe.

My prediction: All these laws will pass muster, and once they do, at least seven other states will adopt something similar.

Beyond that, I support these laws 100%. It's long past time somebody said "I've had enough and I'm not going to take it any more."

Now go ahead and bash the hell outta me, cuz I've just opened up a bottle of booze and am planning on getting blotto anyway. Go ahead, it doesn't matter to me - I won't read it anyway.

@ 31: Posting while drunk is rarely a good idea. Publicly admitting it just gives everyone a reason to ignore you as the alcohol-soaked cretin that you are.

All I'm going to offer in response to your drivel is that you have no clue what the facts actually are, and are completely out of touch with anything even remotely resembling reality. There is no correlation between illegal immigration and elevated crime, and the fact is that the Arizona law presupposes guilt based entirely on apparent ethnicity. That is a clear violation of due process.

@ 24: The two most intelligent counties in Arizona are Coconino (where Flagstaff and NAU are located), and Pima (Tucson and UofA). Both counties were solidly blue in the last several Prez election cycles.

Unfortunately both counties are dwarfed by Maricopa (Phoenix), and in any case neither one has the muscle necessary to send enough genuinely thoughtful people to the state legislature.

My own county (Mohave) is famous for having utterly cretinous, crypto-Libertarian "conservative" representation, and sadly, that's more typical of our electoral choices. Particularly in the rural areas, the wingnuts are emboldened and rather dishearteningly well-organized.

This might swing over the next few years as more people retire here - many of them are probably going to be Boomers, and might cut more toward the intelligent side of the pasture - on the other hand, given the relentless cutting of taxes (and concomitant gutting of social services) and our latest round of public loonery, perhaps we won't see as many people moving here after all.

And on the minus side, idiot laws like the unlawful-search-and-seizure debacle are probably more likely to attract creatures such as the one responsible for comment 31, so … well, we're kind of hosed both ways.

5280, your grammar is good, which is why even arguing against me you couldn't bring yourself to say "I speak good grammar". Because you use good grammar when you speak.

Knock 'em back, it's Friday. I've got a date with a drink myself, so I'm outta here, too.

"It would have given the secretary of state unilateral power to keep a candidate off the Arizona ballot if he or she has "reasonable cause" to believe the candidate is not qualified."

http://azstarnet.com/article_e6cab037-f0…

@11 : Not when the government hires the teachers, see Rust v. Sullivan.