Posted on 02/13/2008 7:52:32 AM PST by redstates4ever
Angry Chicago Latino parents threatened Tuesday to keep their kids home on test day next month if state education officials insist on giving students who are still learning English an achievement test in English.(snip)
Speaking through a Spanish-English translator, parent Erika Soto said her third-grade daughter is “very smart, but because of this test, she is going to be labeled a failure. So how is she going to feel?’’
Parents raised their hands in agreement Tuesday when asked if they would keep their children home rather than have them take the new test.
“We have to push them to pay attention and if this is the way to get them to pay attention, I will do it,’’ said Leticia Barrera, parent of a Monroe Elementary third grader.
State education officials have crafted a long list of test accommodations, including more time, having proctors read directions aloud in students’ native language, and allowing proctors to transcribe student answers in English to questions that require written responses.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
At the next meeting check citizen status.
Green cards, please.
I think we have distilled what education is all about here. Not the proficiency in any field, not the ability to read or write but HOW THE STUDENT FEELS.
How can an English Comprehension test be in Spanish?? These kids might just “strive” if we let them. Kids are that way!! Challenge them...They love it!
Next week the multiplication tables will be in Braille.
Perhaps she would "feel" more at home in a place where Spanish is spoken. Please by all means "Leticia" boost her self esteem and head back from whence you came.
Go ahead and test them in Spanish. Our experience, in Arizona, is that the students will fail in either language.
I agree! They should take the test in Spanish — back in Juarez or Guadalajara.
English is not that far from Spanish. We’ve all seen kids come from Vietnam and in a few years they are winning spelling bees.
So are these mexican kids dumb as hell? Untrainable? Or just defiant illegals?
Regards
If they want tests in Spanish, they can go home and send their kids to school there. I can’t imagine what answer I’d get if I “demanded” that schools in Mexico issue tests in English.
Good. While they’re at “home” they can pack to return to their real home. When back in Mexico, they canb 1) learn ENGLISH, and then 2) apply for US citizenship. What part of ILLEGAL do they not understand? The day we get to the Canadian “dual language” c**p is the day the civil wars begin.
This parent, by refusing to assimilate, is the reason that her child will fail,
not because the test is in English.
In this case, quite possibly all of the above.
Maybe she'll "feel" like studying harder.....
Who cares? Welcome to the USA ... now speak English or GTFO.
Our country continues its relentless march toward Tower of Babel status.
When my son was in kindergarten, a Japanese boy was placed in his class in January. He didn’t speak a word of English. By June, he was as fluent as any of the other kids, spoke without an accent and was teaching his Japanese speaking mother English, as well.
Asians, as everyone knows, aren’t true “minorities”.
Turn students over to INS.
i’ve heard that young children have a better ability to learn new language than adults.
i wonder if this is true
honestly you’d think the kids in this story would WANT to learn english in america it is so essential to not sounding like you just got off the boat. I’d not move to a new country without taking serious pains to learn their language; otherwise you just sound like an idiot
Nah, not braille. The multiplication tables will be by sound.
I should insist that my Spanish class tests be given in English.
How do the Polish kids do?
ML/NJ
Mexican Americans
believe in education
So they go to night school
and take Spanish
and they get a B - Cheech Marin
“...her third-grade daughter is “very smart, but because of this test, she is going to be labeled a failure. So how is she going to FEEL?”
Well, she’ll be labeled a failure because she WILL be a failure in this country. And I don’t give a damn how she FEELS. My cat’s smart, too, but if Noodles can’t pass this school test, I’m not going to picket the school.
When my son was in kindergarten, a Japanese boy was placed in his class in January. He didn’t speak a word of English. By June, he was as fluent as any of the other kids, spoke without an accent and was teaching his Japanese speaking mother English, as well.
That does not surprise me! The mother told the kid to learn English because she wants him to be successful in America. Plus, like you said he is now teaching her! These kids do not want to learn that is their trouble. It is not in their culture to learn as it is in the Japanese culture.
Why doesn't Mexico take care of its own people? Why don't the ultra-wealthy Mexican elites help to pay for the health care and education etc of their own poor? Why do they instead encourage their poor to leave Mexico, invade the United States and demand that we conform to THEM? Nature provides a parallel that is instructive.
Some species of birds thrive not by carefully rearing their own young, but by pawning that task off on adults of other species. The European Cuckoo, whose distinctive call is immortalized in the sound of the "cuckoo clock," is the bird in which this habit has been most thoroughly studied. Female European Cuckoos lay their eggs only in the nests of other species of birds. A cuckoo egg usually closely mimics the eggs of the host (one of whose eggs is often removed by the cuckoo).
The host may recognize the intruding egg and abandon the nest, or it may incubate and hatch the cuckoo egg. Shortly after hatching, the young European Cuckoo, using a scoop-like depression on its back, instinctively shoves over the edge of the nest any solid object that it contacts. With the disappearance of their eggs and rightful young, the foster parents are free to devote all of their care to the young cuckoo. Frequently this is an awesome task, since the cuckoo chick often grows much larger than the host adults long before it can care for itself. One of the tragicomic scenes in nature is a pair of small foster parents working like Sisyphus to keep up with the voracious appetite of an outsized young cuckoo.
This is my main beef with NCLB. My wife is a teacher. If she gets a kid in class who speaks no English, and his/her parents don’t speak or encourage English, how is it the teacher’s fault when the kid does poorly on the test? Politicians, and many folks on this board, place the blame on the teacher. Yet they refuse to address the issue of these kids not being encouraged by their families to learn English.
Politicians keep blaming the local education systems, but they’re the ones that make the local districts jump thru these crazy hoops to reach unattainable goals.
I believe they speak Spanish in Mexico. Perhaps, Erika should move there!
/sarcasm>
Public ed ping.
In defense of the parent:
NCLB states that ALL children, even the ones here legally, will be tested in English ONLY. When I was a student at FSU, we had children of professors at FSU there on sabbatical or working at the research labs. Some of these children were BRILLIANT, but spoke no English. I had a young man from Japan, 10th grader, in Calculus II, but spoke no English.
All of these kids were IMMEDIATELY expected to take and pass a test written in a language that had a completely different alphabet. Period. No excuses for not passing the test. Pass or fail. That is the cut and dry of NCLB.
I will grant you that Spanish and English are similar, I have no issue with that. Nor do I take issue with the fact that they should learn English. I do take issue with a legal alien having to take a test in a language they know nothing about and have had no time to learn the language.
I am not privy to all of the circumstances of this issue, so I can’t comment on it directly. I do think that the parents may actually care about their child and the education of the child, or they would not raise a stink.
Anyway, that is my two cents. I have walked in some of these shoes with some kids.
*APPLAUSE*
My problem with this whole mess is that we are paying top dollar for these tests to be administered to children that don’t speak English. They aren’t fluent. Put them on a plan to become fluent, and continue teaching them English. It costs a lot of money to administer these tests, that do not provide an ounce of benefit.
The younger a child is, the faster they learn another language. There is a language portion of the brain, that is only operative until a child reaches a certain age. Once that center is not operative, the child must learn all other languages with an alternate portion of the brain. It takes much longer, and the language is never learned as well.
It took me about three years to become completely fluent in English. I was 7 when I started, and Portuguese or Spanish were the only languages I spoke at home. I was very motivated, and could understand a lot very quickly. But, I would have needed 2 or 3 years to be able to pass a test like this.
Being able to take a test, and compose answers requires a much stronger comprehension of the language than every day conversation. For some, it will come more easily, some will require longer. These mandatory tests are just a complete waste of money.
I’ve seen standardized tests at that grade level when I gave them to my kids.
How long have they been in the country that by third grade they can’t read well enough to even pass one? 50% is considered average. That’s a little better than guessing.
If the just all marked letter “C”, they’d get at least a 25% on the multiple choice.
Ooo,...ooo,.. ooo,... I know, I know, pick me.
“C”- defiant illegals.
My dad was born and raised in the US of legal immigrants but only spoke the mother tongue at home. When he went to kindergarten, they thought he was retarded because he didn’t respond to the teachers, then they realized he didn’t speak English.
Well, he went on to become perfectly fluent in both languages, no accent in either, and graduated at the top of his class for all four years of high school.
In those days, you assimilated, period.
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No! Not from my experience.
Children can learn to speak without an accent better than adults.
I have made 6 trips to Costa Rica to attend Spanish language school. My children accompanied me on 5 of those trips. On my last trip, my husband ( who knew NO Spanish whatsoever) came for the first time.
Within 6 months of total immersion, my husband learned to speak and understand basic Spanish, read and thoroughly understand the newspaper ( although it was slow and he needed a dictionary), understand and tell some humorous jokes and stories, contribute fully to dinner time and general conversations, participate in church activities, and give and understand directions.
My children did NOT learn Spanish as well, as quickly, or with the cultural depth as my husband and I because they are children and motivated merely to speak Spanish with no more depth of usage and understanding than they have of English. For instance, my children could not understand vocabulary found the Spanish newspapers because they couldn’t understand issues in English, either.
My husband did study though, and he does have an excellent grasp of his own language of English.
If you want to take the test in Spanish, move to a country that is mainly Spanish speaking!
I can't say what I really wish to or I'll get myself banned
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Once I enrolled my youngest ( then in 3rd grade) in the local government elementary school. She started the day before the Maryland state wide testing. She scored a perfect zero!
When I made my trips to Costa Rica, I took 2 children at a time. Only once did I take 3. Yes! I shamelessly used the government school for babysitting.
My bet is most of the kids don’t care. It’s the parents. The schools should go on with the tests as planned.
Yep, I also work with a woman who came from Germany. She said on her first day of kindergarten, though she only spoke German,her parents put her on the bus to school and off she went not knowing a word of English. Kids are much more capable than they are given credit for assimilating.
Keeping kids/people ignorant in the language of the country in which they live is only going to handicap them and slow them down.
If they’re so angry about it, why don’t they go back to Mehico and give their children a proper education.
B-o-o H-o-o. My Father was a Russian immigrant. Nobody gave him any special treatment when he was in school. He graduated with honors.
There is the magic "feel" word. Dims will jump immediately to assist.
Yep, I also work with a woman who came from Germany. She said on her first day of kindergarten, though she only spoke German,her parents put her on the bus to school and off she went not knowing a word of English. Kids are much more capable than they are given credit for assimilating.
Yea, and “Kindergarten” is a German word too!
"Very smart" by what measurement?
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