[ga medic]

Their children are being advanced to a school system where they are expected to have achieved fluency in English.

The parent complaining is worried that his obviously English speaking children, will lose the Spanish they have learned over their elementary school years. I doubt the Spanish speaking students are going to worry about losing their Spanish. Is it possible that you are confusing dual language with an ESL program?

[Myrddin]

The native tongue of the students whose parents are complaining about loss of the Spanish program is not explicitly cited. I've seen successes and failures in programs aimed at teaching a second language. I have no quarrel with teaching a 2nd language at an earlier age. The cognitive processes that permit easy acquisition of languages begin to fail after age 10. I do object to burdening taxpayers with the education of the children of Spanish speaking illegals who have no intention of ever learning English or assimilating into the culture and society of the US.

My #2 son speaks English and Spanish. As a real estate broker, he conducts almost 90% of his business with Spanish speakers. He represents them in court. His employees speak English, Spanish, Tagalog, Mandarin, Thai and Laotion. He views that as a competitive advantage. In exchange for that linguistic access, he mentors those employees to become more competent and productive in the real estate business.