Posted on 10/29/2009 11:39:02 PM PDT by ruination
LOS ANGELES—More than a quarter of English learners don't make it into mainstream classes by the eighth grade in Los Angeles and most of those who don't were born in the United States, according to a study released Wednesday. The study by Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California showed 29 percent of English learners in the Los Angeles Unified School District were still in these classes in the eighth grade. More than half of these students were born in the United States and were in classes for English learners for more than eight years.
"They're staying too long" in these classes, Institute President Harry Pachon told reporters.
"It's much easier to be shunted into the ELL (English language learner) classes than it is to be shunted out," he said.
Pachon said it was easier to be classified as an English-language learner than it was to join mainstream classes, which requires students to meet exam requirements. He said some school administrators said there may be incentive to keep students in a class for English learners once they have progressed because they will aid that class' test scores.
The report comes as Latino enrollment is expected to grow in the country's second largest school district. About 69 percent of 12th graders in the 688,000-student district are Latino, versus 79 percent of first graders, Pachon said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
How does someone born in the US not speak english by the 8th grade?
They should watch more English channels on TV.
Why should they—free health care, section 8 housing, food stamps, free breakfast and lunch, mortgage bailouts, cash for clunkers etc., etc., etc.
Want to hear/read something that disagrees with this article?
I work in a department for the activation of a well-known anti-virus company secretly located in L.A. Twice it’s happened at night. MOST of the co-workers there have Hispanic names and everytime we get a Spanish speaking customer, obviously we ask the Hispanic Americans.
When we ask them to take the call...they REALLY dont want to take it because THEY DONT SPEAK SPANISH. Only 1 took it. With names like Alvarez, Mestas, Sanchez you’d think they would speak it fluently. One of them even said his grandmother told him not to speak Spanish at a young age, so he didn’t.
It’s great that some employees at your anti-virus company didn’t learn Spanish at the expense of English, but doesn’t it bother you that the country is being slowly repopulated by foreigners who really don’t care all that much about who it is they are replacing - and that this presumably includes you and your family and your ancestors and all of the people who struggled to create and defend this country? Was this what the U.S.’s first two and a half centuries were all about? Getting to a place where we can shower appreciation on people who are replacing us because they speak English?
Gee, do ya think? What would you expect when 90% of the surrounding daily population of these children only speak Spanish?
Balls to the wall: Teach English to non-English speakers; teach everything else only in English; test only in English; grade only in English; and, fail out only in English. Those who want to succeed and contribute to our Nation will learn English. Screw the rest of them. The TIME is UP!
40 years ago there were no ESOL programs - do away with that and most of those kids will be speaking English in less than 6 months.
My son reports the same at his business. The person who handles the Spanish calls at his business is a blond blue-eyed young man who did a Mormon mission in Central America.
By faking it to play the system. Per the article: If they are in ELL classes they don't have to take the exams in other subjects like the other students. So, stay there.
Plus, since they are obviously learning something as they go it helps the teachers ratings for that class as the overall test scores improve.
That is what liberals do - play the system.
Not to put to fine a point on it but if you don’t speak English - I won’t hire you - not even to cut my grass.
I speak Spanish, German, Dutch, Vietnamese, and a smattering of French and Hebrew. I spoke Vietnamese, German and Spanish by first grade. You must learn English to work in my nation.
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. - Theodore Roosevelt
It certain couldn’t hurt. In RO English is taught in the schools but most is learned at home in front of the TV. Some of the kids had a *very* good grasp of our language. I suspect there’s more going on in the LA story than they’re reporting. I suspect there’s no interest in speaking English hence the deficit.
“How does someone born in the US not speak english by the 8th grade?”
Because they don’t want to and they don’t have to. So much for those ‘2nd’ generation ‘immigrants’ assimilating.
Here’s what one Mexican Citizen thinks of his ‘culture’.
Sent out today by NAFBPO.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2374377/posts?page=4#4
Milenio (Mexico City) 10/29/09
“The importance of obedience” Full transl. of op/col. by Roman Revueltas, whose previous column appeared in the M3 Report of 10/28/09.
People throw out garbage. That means, we have to change the people. Imagine a country of very civilized people: people who don’t park their car in the middle of a cross street; people who take their turn in line; people who respect; people who do as they say; people who obey. Well, that country, of people who know how to behave, would be much more livable than another, for instance, where people do whatever they feel like doing without any consideration toward their fellow man.
Last week I was walking down the street and a fellow who was walking ahead of me stopped, picked up a plastic bottle dumped on the sidewalk and went into a store to put it in a waste bin. I waited for him to come out and congratulated him. I later thought that this is the way that all of us Mexicans ought to be. I ask you, then, to imagine a territory populated by orderly and reliable persons: almost paradise.
People usually follow rules for fear of punishment. This explains the colossal growth of criminality in Mexico due to the scandalous lack of punishment for the criminals: if you murder and nothing happens to you, well then, you kill again and you go on kidnapping. But, it’s not a matter of bringing up the death penalty scarecrow; it’s an issue of applying the laws, and nothing more. The great question is why is it that millions of citizens exist here who want to commit all sorts of infractions: throwing out garbage is a small transgression; ignoring a traffic light is a minor crime; assassinating a kidnapped child is a monstrosity perpetrated by a beast . Nevertheless, the common denominator of disobedience is present in all cases.
The more highly evolved individuals do not abstain from committing a crime for fear of jail but due to a clear conscience of what is right and what is wrong. Their personality has been structured based on moral values. That is precisely where our failure is as a society: Mexico is a jungle dominated by disobedient, quick tempered and irresponsible individuals, Calderon cannot change this. We change it ourselves.
http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8664651
What also blew me away once a year ago I was at Koreatown in L.A. and this printing shop had a big Bush poster at the back of the counter and it’s hard for the customers NOT to notice it...but that’s not the end of the story.
One of the customers did not speak a word of English but was trying to order the Kodak repro ink that I also wanted to buy. This young Korean dude started speaking Spanish and the customers jaws dropped, including me.
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