Oregon Department of Education plays the Grinch!

I read this morning in this article, that the Oregon Department of Education cut title III funding for Portland Public Schools because of a lack of compliance with regulations and previous warnings about the nature of instruction for ELL's within the district.

Although I did not work for this particular district, this really hits home for me because my district was also visited by ODE which infused stress in many teachers due to the fear that something like this would happen.

As I read through the comments following this article, I became both fascinated and shocked at the attitudes of some people regarding the education and instruction of English for students whose native language is not English. People expressed that bilingual education should be cut, students should only speak English at school and at home, that students should learn that if they want to survive in OUR country, they need to learn to speak English. It was obvious to me that many of these comments came from individuals who are not educators and are also not familiar with research on language acquisition or multicultural education. For that matter, they may not even be aware that many of the original inhabitants of our country were not English speakers. ::gasp!::

Check out some of these comments that made me cringe just a bit:

I'll bet that if multilingual information was eliminated, they would all learn English. My family did back in the 1920s. It would also help if the people in school learning English were using English in the home.

When are people going to get it? Teachers don't care if they learn, to them it's all about the paycheck and their union. No work, more pay??

Of all the worthless programs being forced on the taxpayers to cover, ESL is the one that needs to go. Many of us have insisted for some time that it is a total waste of time and money as this article reinforces. It should not be the public schools responsibility to teach english to a population that has become nothing more than a plague on this country. Laws need to be passed to ensure that English is the offical language.

We as a country must stop welcoming these foreign invaders with open arms, pushing one for English is an insult as is my fifth graders school news letter being printed in both English and Spanish, enough. This is America lets keep it that way.

We have EVERY right to want to maintain our heritage and if foreigners' want to do the same they are more than welcome to in THEIR OWN COUNTRY.

Then there were some comments that I was happy to see:

Immersed? So a beginner, new to the country, speaks no English at all, comes to the USA as a middle or high school student, should be thrown into classes like English Lit, political science, Biology, etc? How much do you think the average student (or, you for that matter) would get from this sort of immersion? How much do you know about the theories of language acquisition? Perhaps you'd like to do a bit of research? Try this site. http://www.sdkrashen.com/index.php?cat=0

I am reading the comments to Betsy Hammond's article with disgust and some degree of rage. Most of you are obviously the ancestors of the folks who came here originally and destroyed the people and the cultures of the original occupants of this piece of geography we call America. Xenophobia is the fear of strangers and your fear is manifest in your snide and sarcastic references to bilingual signs and messages. I sincerely despair that we have not as a nation embraced the value of multiculturalism and the value of what it means to communicate in a language other then our own. Children from pre-school on should all be taught in multiple languages and share in the many cultures that have created this nation. The only illegal immigrant in this country are the ancestors of the people that stole the land from native populations. Shame on all of you for being narrow and mean spirited. You are talking about children who came here with their parents, not on their own and as someone who works in the school as I see those same children struggling as well as embracing education to better their lives. They work twice as hard as our citizen born and behave better too. You mean folks do not know what you are talking about.

Obviously this issue, like many others, is politically charged and elicits strong opinions from different people that can be polar opposites. I think you can tell where I stand however, regardless of what side I agree with, I truly do not see how ODE ripping funds away from PPS is a viable solution. How can they be expected to improve if funding is lost? I understand that there were recommendations made regarding what types of programs/instruction should be taking place for ELL's and that they improved for a bit, but then started to slide again, but I can't help but think that more education, support, or direction would be better than removing funding.

Thoughts??