Thread: Florida State Senator wants to make Spanish MANDATORY

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): There are early 600,000 kids in Florida's K through second grade, almost 100,000 of those are not proficient in English. Yet at least one state senator wants to introduce another language into the mix.

SEN. LESLEY MILLER (D), FLORIDA STATE HOUSE: At that formative age of children, now is the time to get them interested and open their minds to a foreign language. And Spanish being a heavily-spoken language in Florida, we felt that Spanish was the language. TUCKER: Critics decry the move as political correctness gone wild. They note that less than a quarter of the students are Hispanic, while 51 percent are considered minority.

MAURO MUJICA, U.S. ENGLISH: Why Spanish? You know, you have 134 languages spoken in Florida. What about the Russian parents and the Turkish parents and the French parents? Shouldn't it be up to the parents to select the second language for their children?

TUCKER: Local school board members in Charlotte County are left scratching their heads, wondering how they will fit the class into an already full day. And to pay for the program would mean other classes would have to be discontinued.

MIKE RILEY, CHARLOTTE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT: The options would be the specials, the arts, the music, the PEs. But in Charlotte County those are valuable programs to us.

TUCKER: State education officials say the bill is out of line with their priorities.

JOHN WYNN, COMM., FLORIDA DEPT. OF EDUCATION: It's very important to make sure students whose English is not their native English learn to speak and read in English, because living in Florida and the United States, they're going to have to conduct business in English and throughout their school careers.

TUCKER: In the wake of the uproar over his proposal, Senator Miller says he is changing his bill to eliminate making it mandatory.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER: And it is interesting to note that this controversy is happening in Florida, because this is the state, Lou, that passed a bill in 1988 making English the official language. And it passed the Senate and the legislature down there by a vote of 81 percent

SEN. LESLEY MILLER (D), FLORIDA STATE HOUSE

Now what be next in this Senators Mind. To take down the Red, White and Blue and replace it with some other flag.

ONLY ONE OTHER FLAG! THE MEXICAN/CUBAN one, I guess.

Don't let this happen to your state.

I'd say this guy is a big target in the next elections, or he should be. g

Floridians for Immigration Enforcement

www.FLIMEN.org


ANTI-ASSIMILATION FORCED FOREIGN LANGUAGE BILL INTRODUCED BY SENATOR MILLER

Florida Senator Miller wants to make it mandatory that Florida students be forced to learn Spanish. As witnessed by the recent French Muslim riots assimilation of immigrants (legal) is difficult enough but to force citizens of the host country to accommodate foreigners non-assimilation should be consider anti-assimilation, anti-American and anti-Floridian. And what forced language will be next Creole, Chinese, Arabic, Swahili?

Because English is the Constitutional Official Language of the State of Florida this bill could be unconstitutional.

Floridians, especially Senator Miller's constituents, should be outraged. Senator Lesley "Les" Miller, Jr. is Minority (Democratic) Leader from District 18 (Tampa). His email address is: miller.lesley.web@ flsenate.gov. His Senate web page is: Contact Senator Miller.

S522 GENERAL BILL by Miller:

Elementary Schools/Spanish Language; requires implementation of
districtwide programs of Spanish instruction for grades K through 2;
provides requirements for programs; allows use of certain funding
sources. EFFECTIVE DATE: 07/01/2006.

S522 Language


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You had better be out there YELLING, LEGAL!!!