ED's Ali Hails End Of Arizona Teacher Accent Rules

The New York Times (9/25, Lacey, Subscription Publication) reports on Arizona's nearly decade-long policy of "sending monitors to classrooms across the state to check on teachers' articulation," noting that the state "recently made a sharp about-face on the issue. A federal investigation of possible civil rights violations prompted the state to call off its accent police. 'To my knowledge, we have not seen policies like this in other states,' Russlynn H. Ali, the assistant federal secretary of education for civil rights, said in an interview. She called it 'good news' that Arizona had altered its policy." The Times describes the complaint field with ED alleging unfair treatment of teachers with accents, but notes that state officials say they were investigating fluency in English rather than accents.