A good plan for English

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the Santa Maria (Calif.) Times
Last updated Sunday, April 23, 2006 12:17 AM PDT

A good plan for English

California has more than 1.6 million public school students who speak
little or no English. But there are another 6 million or so who have a
command, or nearly so, of the language. So which group should be favored
when it comes to setting curriculum in the language arts in our public
schools? The smart answer is, all of them. And in a very real way, that's
what the state Board of Education set out to do last week when it
established the language arts curriculum ground rules for the next decade.
The board settled on a policy with rigorous requirements - said to be the
toughest in the nation - that will make great demands on those for whom
English is not a primary language.

Some critics say the rules will exacerbate an already severe problem of
many non-English speakers not being able to keep up. They argue that an
entire generation of students may be academically handicapped because the
requirements are too tough. We say those critics have seriously
underestimated our children's ability and willingness to learn. There
should not be separate requirements for those who speak English and those
who are just learning the language. To create such a distinction would
only serve to stigmatize the students in the English-learning classes, and
further separate them from the mainstream society they and their parents
want them to become a part of.

Tough standards are best in the long run, and we applaud the state Board
of Education for taking public schools in that direction.

April 23, 2006

http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2006/04/23/sections/opinion/042306b.txt