[Akira]

No shocker here, just thought I'd post it. Learning English from the Cartoon Network b/c schools won't teach them.

[FormerACLUmember]

Bilingual Education is one of the most efficient means of enslaving an entire population into permanent failure and poverty.

This is not the American Way. But hey, liberals need their low cost maids, toilet cleaners and landscapers.

[Tuco Ramirez]

Educrats in NY have been accused of removing English-speaking children (who had indicated on some form that Spanish was spoken in their home) from regular classes and casting them into Spanish classes...

[Tax-chick]

Alberto, a 9-year-old who will enter sixth grade in the fall.

Wow, smart kid! The average for sixth grade is 11. Best wishes to these parents ... moving the education bureaucracy, especially in New York, seems near to impossible.

[AuH2ORepublican]

This is all about the teachers' unions. Bilingual education programs create thousands of teaching jobs nationwide that would not exist if students from Spanish-speaking homes were allowed to learn English in school. And, as usual, the teachers' unions care more about their benefits than about what is best for the children.

[gubamyster]

ping

[agrarianlady]

Was this in the editorial section of the New York Times? Probably, as it seems to be putting forward an opinion. I'm glad to see it.

How utterly sad for these kids.

I have a friend who is Dutch and is raising her boy to be bilingual. She talks to him only in Dutch at home. He's now almost 4 and can barely speak in English to the rest of the Americans he has to deal with. (She likes to use a lot of babysitters. Especially free ones). He struggles and has such a difficult time my hubby and I feel sorry for him.

I've noticed, however, another couple in my church who have one spouse Dutch and one English. Their grown-up kids speak English (they were raised in the States) but with a definite accent. I don't know if their Dutch is perfect, either. It almost seems like a handicap to not speak one language perfectly. I wonder if anyone else has experience with this.

[nothingnew]

The Tower of Babel lives on, with reinforcement by the "progressives" (read marxists). The last thing the progressives want is for our LEGAL immigrants, not to mention the illegal immigrants, to understand just what they have planned for them. Slavery. Slavery via the milk&cheese giveaways, the "no child left behind" newspeak, and the continuation of keeping the progressives' "new niggers"( read spanish descent,which has become our biggest "minority" surpassing the black population) on their plantation.

FMCDH(BITS)

[swampfox98]

Its going to be a shock when the illegals and legal immigrants learn how really stupid the people are who run American schools.

[Guillermo]

Duh.

If they don't learn proper English in school, they will always be dependent on Government largesse.

Haven't people figured out by now that left wing policies are in fact designed to keep people dependent on them?

[nycgal]

Even though I was born in the US, my father insisted only Greek was to be spoken at home. Bilingual education was nonexistent when I was a child yet I very quickly mastered English. In first grade I was translator for the young greek immigrants who escaped post WWII Greece.

Like the kid in the article I wanted to be like my friends. No greater incentive than that for a kid.

[Alberta's Child]

The NY Times is really out to lunch on this one. If they had any interest in reporting the facts on this story they would have covered the biggest outrage in bilingual education in New York -- kids being stuck in bilingual Spanish classes even if their native language isn't Spanish.

The only purpose of bilingual education in New York is to provide teaching jobs to Hispanic "teachers" who would otherwise be barely employable.

P.S. The kid who learns English on his own may have a bright future after all. I had a classmate in grade school who didn't speak a word of English when his family moved to the U.S. Within about 18 months, he was speaking English with no accent at all -- which he learned by watching cartoons and other kids' shows on television.

[HungarianGypsy]

When my husband was a teacher's aide one student was put in the special ed. class, because she didn't test highly enough to be put into the regular classes. The reason was discovered right away. She could read and write fine : in Spanish. Instead of immersing her into the the school environment so she could improve, the administration was just lazy.

[Regulator]

No shocker here

No shocker?! This got published in the Times? That's shocking!

[M. Dodge Thomas]

Makes sense to me that the parents would feel this way, I recently read that Spanish speaking immigrants are acquiring English (and losing second and third generation fluency in Spanish) faster than any previous large group of immigrants.

If the US was really interested in global cultural hegemony we would regularize English grammer, spelling and pronunciation - in two generations English would become the language of choice in most cultures.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Actually it IS a shocker -- that this article appeared in the New York Times.

[Cacique]

ping

[rmlew]

Bushwick/NY 12 Ping!

[PARodrig]

Part of the problem with "bilingual" education is the label. It does not help make anyone learn a second language, it just reinforces their monolingualism. Latinos have realized this and are not fooled.

Now we just have to help them understand that Democrats don't call themselves that because they believe and support democracy.

[mabelkitty]

They should move to a friendlier state.
Ohio has this Individual Education Program that is bilingual.