What do people here think about the Dallas School Board

[question everything]

decision to demand that some principals learn Spanish and communicate in Spanish? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1729356&mesg_id=1729356

Lou Dobbs yesterday was furious and, frankly, I agree with him.

This nation was founded by immigrants and new comers always relied on friends and relatives - already here - to run interferences with the local authorities. This also strengthen the communities.

But for parents to complain that they cannot follow an award ceremony because it was in English??

The idea, Lou Dobbs said, and I agree, is for new comers to learn the language spoken here, not the other way around.

What I am afraid is going to happen now, is for some bigoted, RWers to use this recent news to spread their hatred of new comers, essentially forcing us to make an impossible choice. Happened in California before.

[Hobarticus]

1. So, how would you propose these newcomers learn the language?

You may have a point, but merely repeating 'learn the language' over and over won't make it so.

Are you endorsing public monies and facilities be made available to train these new Americans in the English language? What does Lou suggest? Or is he just bitchin'?

I'm not beating on you. I just get tired of people screeching about 'furriners' not knowing the language, but they offer no solutions to the problem.

[opihimoimoi]

4. Make it a Passion to learn English...they will go out and take courses

on their own...I have seen it in Adult Ed....Many WANT to Learn...this should be encouraged and made easier....

[Hobarticus]

6. That's a start, encouraging learning...

...but states have to drop some coin to make it happen, too. Adult ed ain't free.

[ret5hd]

7. i propose the same solution that was used for...

the german immigrants, the irish immigrants, the danish immigrants, the italian immigrants, and every other immigrant group that has come here...time.

first generation...doesn't speak english
second generation...biligual
third generation...fully assimilated

these fears are replays of fears that xenophobic americans have had for the entire history of this country. we need to get over ourselves. i know of people that are very very liberal in all respects except this. they see a threat of some kind, and when i call them on it, they just mostly say "i know, i know" ashamed of their own prejudices that they wished weren't there.

[Toots]

8. So how do you feel about road signs in foreign language

California is a prime example of that. Would you recommend all government literature including signs to be in nothing but English? If so how does that differ from what the right wing wishes? Would you call this "Tough Love"? I am of mixed opinion about this. Most of the time I believe it is easier to learn a foreign language if one is forced to by lack of having your own language available. But then the liberal part of me kicks in and says "so what!" Why make things harder for a person. what if it takes several generations for assimilation to occur. Who really gets hurt? I know people get uncomfortable when people around them are speaking a foreign language. Your imagination runs wild and you start imagining what they are talking about. "So what!" A free country right????

[Hobarticus]

10. Yeah, it's going to take a lot more than time, I'm afraid...

If this really is a priority, then we need to make funding and adult ed available. I'm in Iowa, and I see it here too. They made English the 'state language', but offer few or no options for new citizens to learn that language. It's a double-edged sword.

[ret5hd]

15. uhhh...maybe i'm dense but i'm not sure if you agree or disagree with me..

signs and govt literature in a dozen languages wouldn't bother me.

tough love? my point was that in large part first generation immigrants won't and haven't in the past learn english. so what? their kids do. and their kids kids do. it all works out. relax! that's MY point.

[question everything]

13. Agree. And I like the community to be involved

German immigrants, and Irish immigrants and Danish Immigrates etc. did not expect a government to provide translation. They relied on members of their communities and otherwise earned a living within the community so they did not need to use English except when dealing with the authorities. And... these parents encouraged their children to learn the language. They would never demand that tax money be used to translate something for their benefit.

In California, and perhaps in other states, one can take the written driving test in one of several languages and the same with ballots.

What would happen when a non-English-speaking driver comes upon a sign that says "deaf child?" And how can one vote if one does not speak English? I thought that this was a pre-requisite before naturalization. The only exception would be Vietnamese, since most of them did not come here because this was their dream.

I doubt that, say, Sweden or Finland provide teaching and government documents in any other language than Swedish or Finish.

I admire all the immigrants that are determined to make a life here, their willing to take menial jobs - all 3 or 4 of them - and their insistence that their children go to school.

But I do think that expecting a financially stressed government body to provide additional resources is, yes, not fair.

[question everything]

14. I would suggest that their communities

made of friends and relatives that do speak the language, volunteer, or provide the funds to help new comers learn the language and navigate their ways in the local bureaucracy.

There are services that government should provide but I don't think that using bi-lingual anything is one of them. Unless the community has voted on this and agreed that this is how it wants its public funds be used.

[Hobarticus]

16. Just one question:

You don't believe that if the government expects citizens to speak English, that it's not fair to expect the government make English education available?

In my state, if you want to drive a car, you are expected to learn how to drive it safely. The state pays for that via driver's education classes, because it's in the public interest.

What's the difference?

[question everything]

17. For adults, too, or just in school?

And.. I've heard that many schools have dropped driver-ed because, yes, lack of money.

OK, I will change my opinion. Yes, it is in the interest of the government that its citizens speak the language. But the money and effort should go to teaching, rather than to translating everything. Like the old saying of teaching someone to fish instead of giving him food.

At least, most efforts should go into teaching the language, with providing translators - for police and other emergency systems - as the last resort.

[sam sarrha]

2. WRONG.. learn 'Chinese', we will be working to hard as slaves to speak any

language to anyone.. they will beat us if we talk while we work 16 shifts..

[opihimoimoi]

3. All schools should require efficiency in 3 languages, Eng and 2 others

and courses in other Cultures....

[fudge stripe cookays]

5. You have to have

MONEY in a school district to help fund these kids learning English. Otherwise they don't. And what little they learn is from TV and their friends. Their grammar will not be good, nor will their vocabulary.

These assholes and NCLB have killed our school districts even more than many other states, since we had Georgie first as governor, and he didn't want to spend any money on education THEN either.

FWIW, the Dallas School Board cannot keep superintents more than a few months; it's a horrific job managing the place, and no one wants it. The one woman who stayed a few years a couple years ago was put away for embezzling a bunch of money from them.

Mike Moses recently left, so they got a new Latino guy. I give him a couple months tops.

Hopefully he can concentrate a little of his attention on the language skills these kids so desperately need.

FSC

[acmejack]

9. Hey, we do have standardized tests! Whoopee!

Of course education loses quite a bit when you are forced to teach to a test. The no child left behind meant that they would help the rest of the Nations schools descend to the level we have here in TX.

Don't let it happen to Your kids!

[tanyev]

11. I think it is reasonable to require that a certain number of

employees be bilingual. But to restrict it to specific positions, especially the principal, is going way too far.

[Telly Savalas]

12. I thought Stephen Austin and his compatriots drove all

the Spanish speaking heathens out of Texas over 150 years ago. How dare they have the audacity to come back! It is our manifest destiny to have a country of English speakers from coast to coast.