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OUR VIEW ---

English is official; others are practical

When editors at The High Point Enterprise de*cided last Wednesday afternoon what would go where in last Thursday’s edition, they didn’t catch the ironic relationship between two stories.
A headline on the article stretched across the bottom of the front page read, “Davidson adopts English as of* fi cial language.” The headline on one of the two stories packaged at the bottom of the local front read, “Schools secure Chinese teachers for language classes,” with a subhead reading, “High Point youngsters will learn Mandarin Chinese.”
Davidson County Commissioners approved a reso*lution making English the county’s official language for all government meetings, official acts and records, “pretty much upholding state laws,” and because Eng*lish is the common bond that has united a diverse soci*ety for more than 200 years.
On the other side of the county line, where Guilford County Schools already offer a number of foreign lan*guage programs (including but not limited to Japanese, Hebrew and Spanish) to students, a Mandarin Chinese program will be piloted next year at Northwood Elemen*tary, Ferndale Middle and High Point Central schools in High Point. It’s part of Superintendent Terry Grier’s goal of requiring students to become knowledgeable in a second language by the time they graduate high school. The action in Davidson County no doubt will suit most constituents just fine. The action in Guilford County is one more step toward high school graduates who enter the work force rather than going on to college being able to talk “the language of their customers.”
Meanwhile, plenty of emphasis still needs to be ap*plied to helping students attain a better grasp of the English language.