Posted on 04/15/2008 9:06:27 AM PDT by GoldwaterInstitute
English Language Learning
It's time to end judicial mandates in education
By Tom Patterson
The Flores lawsuit to compel the state to spend more money on English language learners is lumbering, in its 16th year, toward its next manufactured crisis.
The plaintiffs' attorney insists that the key to English language learning is massive funding. U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins has vowed that if lawmakers won't provide funding that he, Collins, deems sufficient by Tuesday, he will begin imposing daily fines of $2 million on the state.
The Legislature and the Department of Education have made good-faith efforts to comply with the judge's order. But Collins has repeatedly ruled against them - not because their methods don't work, but because they are too parsimonious with the taxpayers' money.
The original federal law required only that states make an adequate provision for English instruction. Judge Collins and his predecessor turned this innocuous phrase into the mother of all unfunded mandates.
Collins isn't concerned about funding needs other than English language learning. Unlike real policymakers, he is not constrained by the enormous deficit that the state is now facing. In his world without checks and balances, he insists his notions about spending must prevail.
Enough is enough. It's time for the court to step aside and end this case.
Tom Patterson is chairman of the Goldwater Institute, a former state legislator and emergency room physician. A longer version of this article originally appeared in the East Valley Tribune.
English is just fine since it is the dominant language around here, but Latin, Greek, German, French, and Hebrew should also be taught, or at least those Latin, Greek, German, French, and Hebrew words that persist in showing up in English texts.
I have no idea what’s going on here. I wil say however, that public schools generally have access to a lot of money (Washington DC has $25,000 per student). If the ruling says that English needs to be emphasized, I think the schools ought to do so. Calling it an unfunded mandate seems to miss the point. Allocate your resources differently. There’s no better goal for a school than to have students know their own language.
I suppose I am somewhat simple minded...but...this is what the nuns did at St. Joan of Arc:
The immigrant child was placed in the same grade that he had just finished in his native country. He repeated the grade, while spending one full year fully immersed speaking English with the other children.
After school the nuns taught these immigrant children how to read using phonics and the Dick and Jane primers.
The nuns absolute forbade any language other than English! ( They meant it too!)
Within one year every one of these kids were fully integrated and doing well in school in English.
Well, the goal is to build a class of victims with special needs. That's where you get your real funding boost. The best way to increase the school's budget is for the school to do a lousy job. The methods you describe did not facilitate this sort of effort and so they were abandoned.
That's strange - legal immigrants of the past didn't need massive funding to learn English.
Because teachers thoughout the nation did what the nuns did at St. Joan of Arc. ( see post #4).
Well, the goal is to build a class of victims with special needs. That’s where you get your real funding boost.
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It is perverse, but true.
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