If I lived in Arizona and had children attending school, I would certainly keep a close eye on this situation.

Hundreds of students in Arizona are trying to learn English from teachers who don’t know the language, state officials say.

The kids are taught by teachers who don’t know English grammar and can’t pronounce English words correctly. Last year, for example, a Mesa teacher stood in front of a class of language learners and announced, “Sometimes, you are not gonna know some.” A teacher in Phoenix’s Creighton Elementary District asked her kids, “If you have problems, to who are you going to ask?” A Casa Grande Elementary District teacher asked her kids to “read me first how it was before.”

Each year, the state evaluates a sampling of classrooms where kids are learning English. Last year, officials visited 32 districts and found similar problems at nine. Some teachers’ English was so poor that even state officials strained to understand them. The state also found that students learning English at all ages were being taught by teachers who did not have appropriate training or materials. At a dozen districts, evaluators found teachers who ignored state law and taught in Spanish.

So, we have teachers who are instructing students in an English class but they are teaching in Spanish? Are there no principals in these schools who do random checks on their teachers and the progress of their pupils? I could understand if you only observed for a very short time that you may not notice a slight language deficiency, but come on, can these folks not distinguish betweeen two separate languages?

Children will use their language skills throughout their lives. As long as we live in America, we should provide educators who not only teach English well but never instruct in a foreign language on a continuous basis unless teaching such a class. For the sake of the children, I hope Arizona corrects this situation and sooner rather than later.