http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/24/arizona-wants-to-reassign-teachers-with-accents/?hpt=C1 I can see both sides of this argument. You want kids to learn how to speak the language without an accent. But these teachers might be better at explaining words in the native tongue.
There's a few anchors out here in LA with thick accents, its pretty fucking annoying. What if it was a teacher with a thick chinese accent teaching a bunch of mexicans who are still learning English? It'd just be weird as fuck.
I'm going to assume it is people with Spanish accents teaching English to Hispanic kids. But who knows maybe it's teachers with Spanish accents teaching Vietnamese kids. But yes, going to college trying to learn Quantum Mechanics from a guy with a Korean accent, or trying to learn linear algebra from a guy with a german accent is a little frustrating. But that's part of college!
YES! my software engineering professor was really hard to follow. He had this thick Jamaican accent and I was always 2 or 3 words behind what he was saying. As for the topic. These kids are learning grammar and the rules of English from these teachers, they'll learn how to speak and converse from their peers and TV. I've seen it first hand as an ESL teacher.
So somebody from Bahs-ton, or Brooklyn, or the South would no longer be welcome to teach in Arizona, or are *those* sorts of accents acceptable?