Thread: 'Mom, I'm a nino!': Georgia's first bilingual public school

http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_ne ... p?ID=79537

'Mom, I'm a nino!': Georgia's first bilingual public school opens

The Associated Press - FOREST PARK, Ga.

On his first day of school, 5-year-old Al-Khafid Sharrieff Muhammad came home to tell his mom he didn't understand what anyone was saying in class. Just as she was second-guessing sending her child to Georgia's first dual language public school, he grinned and started rattling off all the Spanish words he learned.

"Do you know what a nino is? It's me," Rashida Muhammad recalled Al-Khafid as saying.

While the country is divided over the role of immigrants and the importance of a national language, some English- and Spanish-speaking parents in this Atlanta suburb are bypassing the debate by sending their children to Georgia's first bilingual public school, where the goal is to have all students literate in both languages by fifth grade.

Their motivations are as diverse as the little kids excitedly chatting with one another in Unidos Dual Language Charter School's one-story building in a residential neighborhood near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

There are Hispanic immigrants who are worried their U.S.-born children will not know Spanish, and Americans who want to give their children a competitive edge, all spurring an increase in bilingual education across the country.

"I hope people start looking at a diversity of languages as a must, and stop looking at America as a one-language country," said Pedro Ruiz, president of the Washington-based National Association for Bilingual Education.

Teaching children in their native tongue as well as English has been common throughout U.S. history. The historical goal, like that of most language programs targeting immigrants, is to help students become more proficient in English without falling too far behind in coursework.

The predominance of English, however, has been the underlying value _ with bilingual education losing ground whenever the debate over immigration heats up, said Donna Christian, president of the Center for Applied Linguistics. In May, the Senate passed two measures declaring English the nation's official, "common and unifying" language.

But the increasing desire to preserve the immigrants' heritage and the economic recognition that being bilingual is a plus on a resume is leading to a growing number of dual language schools like Unidos. There are more than 300 such programs in the U.S., the first of which opened in 1962 in Florida, and most teach Spanish and English, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Those programs aim to make children equally literate in two idioms while sending the message that starting with a language other than English isn't an handicap.

"It encourages cross-cultural understanding," said James Crawford, an author on U.S. language policy and a founder of the Institute for Language and Education Policy. "Minority kids are no longer recognized as having a problem."

The 132 students at Unidos get about 70 percent of their reading, writing, social sciences and math in Spanish, and 30 percent in English, said school founder Dell Perry.

That balance scared away some English-speaking parents in this predominantly black county, where only about one out of 10 residents are of Hispanic descent. When Perry won approval from the Clayton County school board to open the charter school, she received several e-mails from people upset with the decision, including some who complained that "those people need to learn English."

Contrary to the perception that bilingual education is for immigrants who don't want to assimilate, two-thirds of Unidos students are English-speakers. They include some immigrants' children who are likely to forget their heritage tongue unless they keep studying it and others whose parents want them to learn Spanish because "it's sort of where things are going," Perry said.

The seven teachers, all of whom have at least a basic knowledge of both languages, use only one language in the classroom and rely on hand gestures, miming and lots of repetition to keep the children's attention.

During the first two weeks of school, they've been learning about colors, numbers, the month of August and the letters A and E _ as well as about making friends with children from vastly different backgrounds.

"Kids who've never seen Hispanics before _ they want to eat beside each other, they fight to sit beside each other," said Lynda Quinones, who teaches English at Unidos. "If it wasn't this environment, they'd probably be attacking each other."

As he was getting out of class one recent afternoon, David Mata, a 6-year-old whose parents immigrated from central Mexico 10 years ago, said shyly his favorites about school are learning to write, to draw and the two friends he's made.

His mother, Micaela Mata, who speaks English "more or less," said she hopes David will teach her because she was a teacher in Mexico and dreams of becoming one at Unidos. She wants David to be a "well-educated child" and have a job that's "not too hard," not one of the labor-intensive, blue-collar jobs that are typical among immigrants.

A vast majority of Hispanics at all educational levels believe that immigrants' children need to be taught English, according to a June survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. Similarly, many parents with no Hispanic ties are pushing for dual language schools because they realize knowing a foreign language is an asset, Ruiz said.

Yolanda Hood enrolled her 5-year-old son, Thaddeus, in Unidos with the hope he's young enough to learn Spanish effortlessly. She said that will help him thrive in a country that's increasingly diverse.

"We'd be really arrogant to expect everybody to speak English," she said.

"We'd be really arrogant to expect everybody to speak English," she said.

Well then....I'm arrogent. Seems to me they are MORE arrogant by comming to this country and refusing to adopt this language.

"I hope people start looking at a diversity of languages as a must, and stop looking at America as a one-language country," said Pedro Ruiz, president of the Washington-based National Association for Bilingual Education.

Up Yours Pedro!

What's a nino?

Here is the rationale for the school according to the petition submitted to the Clayton County Board of Education.

I don't see any of the altruistic BS in the article listed here.

5.2. Rationale for the school

Dual language programs are gaining in popularity and increasing in numbers as states struggle to provide equitable educational opportunities for all their children, including the large and rapidly increasing immigrant populations. Georgia is one of the states in the southeastern United States that has recently faced tremendous immigrant population growth. According to the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (2005), the Hispanic population grew faster in Georgia than in any other state in the nation from 2000 to 2002, at 17%, with 102 Hispanics moving to Georgia each day….Metro Atlanta experienced the most rapid Hispanic growth rate among the nation’s 20 most populous metro areas…[and] between 1996 and 2000, the number of Hispanic students in Georgia public schools rose by almost 98 percent.

In response to these developments, many citizens of Clayton County recognize the need to respond with educational options in their vicinity that embrace the diverse ethnic, socioeconomic and cultural background that exemplifies this community. The continued encouragement from many members of the civic and business community has propelled the development of this petition to establish the Unidos Dual Language Charter School to serve these growing needs for Clayton County.

The proposal for UDLCS has been developed to provide an excellent education opportunity for this area’s students in keeping with the educational and economic needs of growing importance for these Atlanta communities.

http://www.unidoscharter.org/Charter_Pe ... County.htm

others whose parents want them to learn Spanish because "it's sort of where things are going," Perry said.

That's a shameful statement...........it's all backwards.