Thread: School fight brews over who needs help in English

School fight brews over who needs help in English

Traditionally, parents of students in Arizona must fill out a three-question form, which is in English and Spanish, to help determine if a child needs improvement in English proficiency, The Arizona Republic reports.

Here are the questions:

• "What is the primary language used in the home regardless of the language spoken by the student?"

• "What is the language most often spoken by the student?"

• "What is the language that the student first acquired?"
Students are formally tested if "English" is not the answer to all three questions.

Now, Arizona schools superintendent Tom Horne has mandated a query with only a single question as to the primary language of the student. If the answer is "English," the schools must put the student into mainstream classrooms.

Some lawyers, educators and rights groups say Horne is trying a maneuver to save money and have filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, the paper says.

Horne says too many students are wrongly labeled as English-learners when they are really just having trouble academically.

He calls the charges that he is trying to save money as "false accusations by idiots."

Posted May 28, 2009
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If they want to save money just have I.C.E. investigate everyone who doesn't speak English as a first language and if they are illegal, deport the whole family.

NYC is spending thousands of dollars more to educate immigrants from all over the world (legal and illegal) than it spends on American kids.

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