Tokenconservative
Banned
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2007
- Messages
- 2,202
Where I live, they've been struggling mightily in the major cities to figure out why it is the public schools here are such disasters.
They've done studies, called in outside "experts," gone to the parents, and every governor and city mayor for at least the past decade and a half has called him/herself "the EDUCATION gov/mayor."
Still, our schools continue to fail. The dropout rate rises. White flight continues (these kids LIVE in the neighborhoods, but thier parents send them to private schools). Some schools have (under new laws) actually been forced to close and re-open as charter schools.
Funding for schools continues to rise. Free lunches (and breakfast) are at an all-time high despite a booming economy with virtually no unemployment. Teachers are, more and more, being required to prove expertise in their subject area, forcing out the incompetent and teacher salaries are far above the average for the area ($50k/yr, vs. just under $30k) removing any notion that "low pay" prevents the hiring of better teachers. Meanwhile, the larger districts engage in nation-wide hunts for top officials, paying them top dollar ($120-250k). So that too, simply cannot be the problem.
So what is it? The water? Cycles of the moon?
Just recently, the largest district here came out with what was taken in the media and their own circles as a surprising idea: kids who do not speak English, do not fare as well in these schools as kids who do and that since many of the schools in these districts are 75%, 80% even 90% "non-English learners" that this may--just MAY--have some impact on the testing scores that indicate how badly these schools are doing!
Whooda thunk it!?
And what language is it that thes "non-English learners" speak as their native tongue? Tagalog? Ursi? !Kunk!? Well...no, as it turns out. The language is...Spanish!
And where, one might wonder, do all these Spanish-speaking "learners" come from? Granted, this state was once, partly a part of Nueva Espana, and yes, there is a large native Hispanic (Spanish- or Mexican-American) population here and always has been. And while many of these people and their kids speak Spanish (many an archaic Castillian) their primary language is English.
So who are all these Spanish-speaking "learners"?
It seems that school and state education officials here, including governors and mayors have simply been unable to figure it out, but they HAVE, finally, come to realize that when you have schools filled with "learners" who do not speak the language of the nation in which they are um..."learning" it makes it tough for them to um...learn.
I wonder why, given the insistence that American schools are run by our nation's best and brightest, that it's taken them so long to figure out that when 70%, 80% or even 90% of a school's "learner" population is the children of illegal aliens who do not speak English, that this may present a problem.
Tokie
They've done studies, called in outside "experts," gone to the parents, and every governor and city mayor for at least the past decade and a half has called him/herself "the EDUCATION gov/mayor."
Still, our schools continue to fail. The dropout rate rises. White flight continues (these kids LIVE in the neighborhoods, but thier parents send them to private schools). Some schools have (under new laws) actually been forced to close and re-open as charter schools.
Funding for schools continues to rise. Free lunches (and breakfast) are at an all-time high despite a booming economy with virtually no unemployment. Teachers are, more and more, being required to prove expertise in their subject area, forcing out the incompetent and teacher salaries are far above the average for the area ($50k/yr, vs. just under $30k) removing any notion that "low pay" prevents the hiring of better teachers. Meanwhile, the larger districts engage in nation-wide hunts for top officials, paying them top dollar ($120-250k). So that too, simply cannot be the problem.
So what is it? The water? Cycles of the moon?
Just recently, the largest district here came out with what was taken in the media and their own circles as a surprising idea: kids who do not speak English, do not fare as well in these schools as kids who do and that since many of the schools in these districts are 75%, 80% even 90% "non-English learners" that this may--just MAY--have some impact on the testing scores that indicate how badly these schools are doing!
Whooda thunk it!?
And what language is it that thes "non-English learners" speak as their native tongue? Tagalog? Ursi? !Kunk!? Well...no, as it turns out. The language is...Spanish!
And where, one might wonder, do all these Spanish-speaking "learners" come from? Granted, this state was once, partly a part of Nueva Espana, and yes, there is a large native Hispanic (Spanish- or Mexican-American) population here and always has been. And while many of these people and their kids speak Spanish (many an archaic Castillian) their primary language is English.
So who are all these Spanish-speaking "learners"?
It seems that school and state education officials here, including governors and mayors have simply been unable to figure it out, but they HAVE, finally, come to realize that when you have schools filled with "learners" who do not speak the language of the nation in which they are um..."learning" it makes it tough for them to um...learn.
I wonder why, given the insistence that American schools are run by our nation's best and brightest, that it's taken them so long to figure out that when 70%, 80% or even 90% of a school's "learner" population is the children of illegal aliens who do not speak English, that this may present a problem.
Tokie
