Nine California school districts lost an appeal to have students who speak English as a second language undergo testing in their native languages for No Child Left Behind assessments. The school districts first sued for that right in 2005, claiming that it punished non-native English speakers, 85 percent of whom speak Spanish.
Their case was rejected in 2007, leading to the appeal.
Attorney Mary Hernandez of San Jose, who represented the school districts, has yet to say whether the she will take the issue to the State Supreme Court.
Why is this an issue? Every country has an official language; China, Mexico, Russia. They don’t conduct official business in English, why should we have to indulge people who want to live here but refuse to learn English?
Sounds like something out of the “Merc’s” News of the Weird column.
Here’s a crazy idea, hear me out. Maybe they should learn English and go from there. I know, I know,…a little far afield but let’s give it a shot.
Silicon Valley Newsroom,
Is this figure really true?
“85 percent of whom speak Spanish.”
Man, if that is true then our teachers aren’t doing their jobs very well are they? How are these non English speaking students getting through scoool and earning degress then? I am honestly confused, unless teachers are conducting their classes in Spanish.
Correction to my number 4 post, I meant school, not scoool! Long, hard, busy week. Thank God it is Friday!
#2- Greg, you crack me up. Thanks for the laugh. I needed it~
Schools will be penalized and have funding taken away because it is the fault of the schools that students can’t pass a test given in a language that they don’t understand?
Je pense que peut-etre il y a des gens ici qui aient difficulte avec une examen en quelque langue qu’ils ne parlent pas.
In effect it is just another way of taking away funding for schools in less-affluent neighborhoods and moving it to more affluent neighborhoods. The schools in the less-affluent neighborhoods will end up having larger class sizes and fewer resources, which will result in worse NCLB performances, thus losing more funding, in an endless spiral to the bottom.
It’s the schools in less affluent neighborhoods that should be getting more funding, because they have more problems to deal with—such as students who need to be taught to speak English in addition to other subjects.
Just to take it one step further. Why do we have bilingual voting ballots?
I thought – – – –
in order to vote one had to be a CITIZEN!!!
I thought – – – – –
In order to gain citizenship one had to be able to speak/understand English!!!
I thought – – – –
I’m all for people speaking whatever they want and I don’t throw a fit when I see a billboard in Spanish or Vietnamese, but I figure knowing English here is a crucial element of education and future success just like math or science. Will these children be moving to nations where English is not so commonplace? If not, it’s going to be awfully tough for them in the world beyond their community. I’d hate to see the PC crowd get on a soapbox at the cost of these kids becoming fully integrated into society.
Hugh,
How indelicate of you to ask that question – shame on you! If you’re going to survive and prosper in our politically correct society, you’ll need to take some diversity training.
#7—it also used to be that to even get into this country legally one had to have sponsor who would be financially responsible for the immigrant. They actually had to sign an agreement to that effect. The purpose—so they wouldn’t become a financial burden on US taxpayers.
Does anyone know when that requirement went away? Was the immigration law changed, or was it some court ruling on an ACLU lawsuit?
I have no problem with commercial/business stuff in other languages. It makes sense, in fact. I do have a problem with lots of government stuff in multiple languages. If they don’t have the desire to learn English, they probably don’t consider the USA their country. It has been estimated that $45BILLION per year goes back to Mexico by Mexicans working here. And many of them no hablan ingles. Ever watch a winner getting a fat Lotto check? She/he needs a translator. Almost daily you read a story of some event happening to an immigrant who’s been here for DECADES, speaking through an interpreter.
Show a little respect for the country that gives you a job and a home with power, unlike the sh*thole you left. And Presidente Calderon is no better than his ten predecessors in making life good in Mexico. So we US taxpayers fund his mistakes.
And folks wonder why we’re running deficits at every level of government.
Schools are educating youth, but the true scenario remain for those who migrate from mexico, vietnam, india, phillipines and other countries, is that they arrive at anytime and ‘assumed’ that these students have same sets of knowledge and skills.
Due to California’s proximity to Mexico and there are lots of relatives that encourage movement to California. There has been a noticed trend that most families migrating to the US have that children are illiterate even in their primary language.
Requiring a foreign student (new) to US to test in English is wrong. I would suggest exemption for atleast two years. English is a difficult and confusing language to learn, students should be tested in their primary language for atleast 3 years. Many studies have indicated that students perform at their peak when their is support for learning.
Wow JMO, I had forgotten about that. Good question, when did that change or has it?
Rick in Palo Alto,
I disagree with you. That kind of thinking only encourages them not to learn the language. There is no way foreign countries/governments would do that for us! I know, my Mother and sisters migrated here from Germany.
Requiring US taxpayers to pay for the education of illegal immigrants and their childrenb is what is wrong, #11. They also get free breakfast and lunch on us during the school year. That’s wrong, as well.
JMO,
I don’t think the law was ever changed. It’s just that our public servants – at all levels from Federal to City – choose to ignore the law. Just think what anarchy we’d have if everyone ignored laws as they saw fit!
Rick, you couldn’t be more wrong. That two year exemption would result in permanently illiterate residents, forever attached to the public teat in one way or another.
RIGHT ON!!!, Greg #14.
Every dollar diverted to Kow Tow and support illegal immigrants who refuse to learn English and yet DEMAND services paid for by hardworking American taxpayers is a dollar that hardworking Americans give up to people who don’t even consider this their country. They just use this country because the bleeding heart/white man’s burden types give it to them…at the expense of hardworkin Americans and LEGAL immigrants.
If the liberal/diversity types want to support these people, I have no problem with that…as long as they use their own personal money, not taxpayer money.
It’s like the preservationist types who have kept Steve Jobs in litigation FOR YEARS over what he can do with HIS OWN LAND. They can do it because they never have to pay the attorney’s fees…but Steve does, JUST TO DO WHAT HE WANTS WITH HIS LAND!!!
We need good-hearted people to stand up for things, but they need to do it with their dollars, not everyone else’s dollars. It’s easy to be a liberal when someone else is picking up the check.
If you are here illegally, you should have no rights to publicly financed anything.
I agree with Rick. It seems like a one or two year option to test in another language for recently arrived foreign students is a good idea. If you are trying to gauge knowledge base for a variety of subjects you should actually test that knowledge base. You could leave the writing section in English and test other subjects in the kids native language. A kid could be a whiz at math, but do extremely poorly on these tests because he can’t understand the word problems/directions. What good does it do us to use the whole test to determine whether a kid can read english? A two year window would allow that to correct itself.
For those of you saying it only encourages immigrants to not learn the language, I think you are overstating the point. While there are plenty of people who come here as adults that never learn english, I think that is almost non-existent amongst children. Often it is the immigrants who can’t speak english that are most adamant that their children master the language – they understand how difficult it is to operate in American society without being able to communicate.
#16-Jason,
I respectfully, and completely disagree with you. Non-English speaking parents aren’t adamant about their children learning the English language because they understand the difficulty of trying to make it in American society.
They do it, if they do it at all to:
Keep from learning the language themselves, and secondly to use their kids as translators for them. I work with youth who always complain about their lazy parents who use them to translate and refuse to learn the language.
My Mother and sisters immigrated here and learned the language. I have a ton of friends from other cultures that immigrated here legally and learned English. There is no excuse for living here 5,10,30 years and not being able to speak English.
One of the reasons I admire the Vietnamese, and Indian culture so much is because they teach their own citizens English in their OWN country. Many of these communities have their OWN schools, and teach and learn English WITH their children right here in the good old USA because education is a number 1 priority to them.
We have a lot of bright, poor children in our school systems that have been ignored or left behind because our PC society is too busy trying to accommodate illegal immigrants than its own citizens. It is a real shame that because the families of these legal, poor, bright kids can’t afford private schools or college for these kids, they never reach their God given potential. I wonder why few to no one seems too concerned about those children Jason and Rick.
Even taking the cynical point of view that parents want their kids to learn english solely to translate for them, still assumes that these kids are in fact learning english. If people want to rail against immigrants who can’t or won’t learn to speak the language after 30 years, fine. But that is a completely seperate issue from one or two tests given to school age children in another language. I have yet to hear anybody lay out a convincing case that two tests (notice we aren’t talking about teaching in other languages or wholesale changes in the classroom) would somehow result in a generation of school children who grow up without learning english.
For me the question boils down to what the goal of the testing is. If it is to assess the knowledge base of students then I see a valid reason for allowing certain sections to be conducted in different languages for a year or two. If it is to judge the performance of teachers and schools, I think including the tests of newly arrived/non-english speaking immigrants can skew results and give an impression different from the actual quality of classroom instruction.
Jason,
You ask an excellent question, what is the goal of testing these students?
If non-English students want special consideration for their educational needs then they should pay for it themselves. No more free rides on the taxpayer’s dime. Our schools are already doing a great disservice to students. California is way behind other States and countries in the education it provides youth today. Why do you think other countries are so far ahead of us in technology and other vital fields? It is because they put education as one of their main priorities.
Our countries priorities need to change! Education, health care, public safety, and small business are the first things we need to address. These are the very things that once made this country great. If we can’t take care of ourselves no one else will, and if we can’t take care of ourselves we certainly can’t help others.
California is being dragged down into the Third World rapidly because we pay for all the folks who have left Presidente Calderon’s failed corrupt state. Yeah, yeah, there are illegals from other countries, but the VAST MAJORITY come from Mexico. I understand why they do it, and I sympathize. Mexican politicians have failed their countryment for centuries. But that’s not OUR problem. We cannot be the charity of last resort for all the teeming masses who come here with no education, no desire to learn our language or customs, no desire to become Americans.
Illegal aliens get free education, including free breakfast and lunch, PAID FOR BY CALIFORNIA TAXPAYERS. They get WIC, MediCal, and all sorts of other benefits that my mother, who was born here and worked here all her adult life, DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR because she has more than $2k in the bank.
They get free translators and public defenders when they commit crimes. They get incarcerated HERE at our expense, instead of being shipped back to Presidente Calderon.
NO MAS!!!
Charity begins at home. People who were born here or who came to this country LEGALLY get the shaft because we are paying for all the illegals. They will bankrupt this state if we allow it to continue.
NO MAS!!
Did you ever stop to consider that part of the CALIFORNIA TAX BASE, are “illegals”. The scapegoat argument is older than Moses, and history shows a clear manipulation and meddling in Latin American affairs by US governments from John Adams to HW Moron. Here’s another historical fact, Mexicans have fought for the US in every war since the Civil War, does that count for anything? And while we are on the subject, undocumented immigrants contribute to the tax base more than they use in services supplied by those taxes. They provide billions of dollars to Social Security which they don’t recover and they are an essential component of this economy so WTF are you taking about? A racist by any other name is still a racist.
Mmm, someone’s about to get sentenced to “Diversity Purgatory” for an eternity of Political Correctness 101 (sometimes called “Screaming Left-Leaning Wimpism.”)