[gubamyster]

ping

[livius]

I think it's a lovely idea. But they want to teach them gutter Spanish. I have known qualified native-speaking Spanish teachers from Spain and Latin America who were turned away because the schools wanted some barely literate American-born speaker of "grandmother Spanish" to teach them her own bizarre Spanglish.

I don't mind a quality bilingual program, although I must say, I think the other language should be Latin.

[archy]

The school district is studying the possibility of converting one or more of its six elementary schools into dual language programs where the day is divided between lessons in Spanish and English for all students. "Research says that's the best delivery model," Superintendent Mack Armstrong said. "Then the question is, Why wouldn't we do it?"

Why not Russian instead. There are more Russian speakers in the world than French and German speakers combined....

[Clara Lou]

Amazing-- we're having enough trouble teaching kids all that they need to know in even one language. Now, we should try to teach them in two languages.

[Bobby777]

and why not igpay atinlay?

oh well, that whole English / S.A.E. thing wasn't working anyway ... my favorite is when the help service asks if I want English or Spanish ... how about making English the default and only punch a button if I wan't Spanish? ...

nah, makes too much sense ...

we could all start driving on the left side of the street too ... (uh oh, here it comes ... LOL ... "you mean you don't?" ... hehe) ...

c'est dommage ...

[Lizavetta]

Fabulous. Now American children will be dummies in two languages.

I would MUCH RATHER see classes in computer science, basic engineering, and math....you know, so the students could get a stinkin' job when they graduate.

[Blue Screen of Death]

A generation of bilingual hamburger flippers with high self esteem.

[Scenic Sounds]

Hemos estado esperando esta oportunidad. El español es muy importante. ;-)

[Dog Gone]

In the short term, it might help Americans to learn spanish, as the Mexicans are overrunning our borders. In the long run, the entire world had better learn english, but that is the language which will ultimately prevail.

[B Knotts]

Washington (and Oregon) needs to follow California's lead, and ban bilingual education. It just keeps kids behind.

[ctonious]

"Quire papases fritas con eso?"

[DefCon]

I learned this from watching "Leave It To Beaver"
on TV back in the '60's!

"Usted tiene una cara como un puerco."

Eddie Haskell got the Beaver in big trouble with that one !

[ctonious]

O, ahora Jorge dice a Mexico "Mi Alamo es su Alamo"..

[irishtenor]

Hey, everybody... want to get rich? All you have to do is set up a private school up there. People will be clammering to get in.

[ReagansShinyHair]

"It's a big leap. I can understand a little hesitancy," Warner said. "It's hard for us as adults to understand the capacity that kids have for learning languages."

If kids always learn languages so easily, then why are the migrant kids' low test scores blamed on their low English skills?

I teach ESL. Hispanic students of migrant worker origin do not generally come from homes that value education. They do not read to their children at home. They take off for Mexico regularly, and students are absent for weeks to months to most of the school year, and then they return and get socially promoted to the next grade. I was just making progress with one kid, and now he's gone for ten weeks. He will return having lost a year's worth of progress. It has happened many times.

While parents in the small logging town were suspicious of the program at first, not a single student has transferred from the school since the conversion, Principal Steve Warner said.

Probably because the school offers morning and afternoon day-care. People fight to get into the montessori program at my school...because it offers full-day kindergarten. The program is full of kids who were obviously locked in a box until they turned old enough to go to school. Also, not ONE student? Nobody even moved away?

"Both students are getting a foreign language. Both students are getting primary content in their primary language," Armstrong said. "So, there's a benefit for all students involved."

This should say, "Both students are getting a smattering of their primary language. So, there's a handicap for all students involved."

There is also the problem of finding qualified teachers. I have watched education since the early 1980's in Southern California, and I saw the bilingual thing come and go. They hired the most incompetent people simply because they were bilingual. Well, technically, I would not say most of them were bilingual. They spoke one language, and it wasn't English. Once they were hired, it was extremely difficult to get rid of them.

[dandelion]

Whoops, sorry - Texas already doing it 32 years ago, ceptin' it was trilingual down in New Braunfels...

Espanol, Deutsch, and Texan.

[JamesA]

And who's fault it it? Seems to me if our founding fathers wanted us speaking anything other than English they'd adopted it...They didn't...just another exhample of the delution of American culture.

[HennepinPrisoner]

If they are going to do a blingual program, why teach Spanish as the second language? So the kids are qualified to clean hotel toilets and work in other service industries?

They should learn Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, or German. At least it would give them an advantage in a white-collar job.

[HennepinPrisoner]

"WE GRADUATED FROM BURLINGTON SCHOOLS BILINGUAL EDUCATION PROGRAM!"

[DustyMoment]

"Research says that's the best delivery model," Superintendent Mack Armstrong said."

WHAT!!!!??????? That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. In what drug-infested world that this twit lives in is this the "best delivery model"? When we're talking about learning, the more the message is muddied, the less the student learns. When learning focuses on two different languages, rather than the ability to read, speak, perform mathematic operations or write fluently in one language WELL, the children will receive, at best, a mediocre education.

I think these so-called "educators" need to go back to school - to be taught with their own theories and see how many turn out to be the "best delivery models".