[spintreebob]

Pro-choice anyone? Let parents choose whether their kids are in one or the other.

Currently, parents are pressured, or not allowed at all, a choice in the education of their kids. The administrators always shuffle the kids in whatever way will gain the most dollars for the system.

The teacher asked my daughter's class to fill out a form that asked their race and ethnic group. My daughter answered 1/2 and 1/2. The teacher told her bluntly that she could not be half and half. She had to choose one or ther other, which meant either choose mother and reject father or vice versa. My daughter refused.

My wife and I were called in for a conference that was originally billed as a discipline problem with our daughter. It was then that the facts and motivations were uncovered. The asst principal stated that she really would like our daughter labeled "Spanish speaking" so that she could be placed in a bilingual class. There was extra funding available if the school met a certain threshold percentage of Spanish speaking children and the school was only 3 kids short of meeting that threshold. They were also pressuring a couple 4th general kids of Hispanic ancestry to be forced into the bilingual class in order to get the funding.

Follow the money. Change the criteria for getting the money and watch the education theories suddenly change.

[starbase]

They are very divisive and give the impression that Hispanics don't really want to learn English or be part of American society. This is not the truth, of course, and many Hispanics have even sued to get their kids out of "bilingual" classes.

I think all classes should be English immersion and compulsory, that would address Cincinatus' Wife's point that not all Hispanic students are rejecting America. The ones that aren't rejecting us can learn English in the best way, and the ones who are rejecting America (like la Raza supporters) will just have to learn English anyway.

I speak French and Chinese, both pretty well I may say, but only because I lived in each of those countries and that's what I had to speak if I wanted to say anything!! We should do the same in the US, it works!