Monday, April 16th, 2007...7:51 am
No azstarnet.com Poster Left Behind
Josh Brodesky has an article in yesterday’s Arizona Daily Star about a community meeting that Raúl Grijalva had at Roskruge about No Child Left Behind. The article focused on Grijalva’s troubles with how the act treats English language learners, but also went over concerns that were voiced about teacher certifications and limits on cirriculum.
I read last year that Utah and South Carolina wanted out of No Child Left Behind. Is there anyone on the left or right that doesn’t work for Margaret Spellings that likes this thing?
What struck me was the replies that were posted in response to the article. Apparently, it is these darned ill-eagles that cause these problems. If they would just be willing to learn to speak English, there would be no ELL issue.
Um, guys, this happens precisely because immigrants (legal or otherwise) want to learn English. If they didn’t want to learn English, there would be no funding issue because the classes would be rather empty.
The first comment was from a woman who noted that immigrants from India speak English. You know, she’s right. She may also notice that immigrants from Belize, South Africa and Jamaica also speak English. Any clue why this might be?
I had an immigrant teacher from Leeds. He spoke perfect English. I bet he never took an ELL or an ESL class in his life.
Another poster noted that her grandmother immigrated from Russia in the 1920’s. Good for her. I love hearing examples like this. These folks either don’t know their history, or hope that whoever their audience is doesn’t know that after 1924, immigration from Russia and a pretty hefty chunk of Europe was essentially illegal (what’s Russian for “mojado“?). Oh, and by the way, Eastern cities had newspapers and even radio broadcasts in Russian, Polish and Croat in those days to serve these communities (some of which still operate). Sound familiar? No ELL in those days.
Well, I have to give these posters one thing: most of them can actually spell. They didn’t provide a smart ass like me with ammunition to note that maybe they don’t know English too well themselves. That’s okay, the Cro-Magnons will be out in force when the next article mentions anything even halfway Hispanic, and I’ll get to be a smart alecky jerk again.
NB - Full disclosure: Josh Brodesky is a former co-worker and we’ve hung out on occasion.
Comments are closed.