our schools are graded on the average. Don't you think that spanish speaking children ............?

Question

with parents who continue to use spanish at home and spanish t.v., radio, and depend on spanish labels are not holding back the success of OUR schools as a whole for FCAT grades, or whatever your state requires for school grades as a whole!

FLORIDA educator
with daughter in High school

Answer 1

The parents are to lazy and disrespectful to our country to learn the language.

Answer 2

No, I don't think that is the case. i am a teacher, and I see no problem with parents speaking Spanish to their children. Why is it that we have such an issue with this? Ever since America was first settled, people have come into this country speaking various languages, and people have always tried to preserve their own cultural heritages. My grandpa, for example, emmigrated from Sweden in the 1930s. He spoke Swedish at home with his parents and learned English gradually as all children do. For some reason, we expect different for children from Mexico, and it is purely a racist issue. a funny thing is, the US citizens who are moving down to Mexico are not making any valiant effort to speak Spanish. My mother-in-law lives there and can't speak a word of it. Neither can any of her friends. The thing is, it is hard to learn a new language.

As for the schools, anyone who is in the know knows that the problem lies witht he absurdity of the standardized testing and not with the immigrant populations in the schools. The federal and state governements DO take minority population into account when grading schools. I think if you really want to do something usefu, you will gather FACTUAL information and consider our country's history.

These people are not REFUSING to learn english, it is just IMPOSSIBLE for them to put thier entire culture and lives behind them and only watch english TV, etc. While I was in Mexico for a month this year, I noticed that the US citizens living there live in little gated enclaves, and watch satellite TV, and shop at the English-speaking grocery store.

Answer 3

When I was in elementry school, and this was 10 years ago, just about every child spoke English and Spanish. We had the CTBS and that determined how intelligent you were or how well you were doing in school. Everyone did fairly well in the math portion, but the reading and writing portion were other matters. Most children passed the writing portion, but did not pass the reading. Educators believed that the problem was due to the teachers not teaching reading enough, it never occured to them to put the Spanish language into the mix because no one learned Spanish at school it became forbidden to teach it when I went into the 3rd grade. The problem was not children learning or speaking Spanish, is was just teachers who did not teach reading skills.

Answer 4

I would have to disagree. As a child my parents spoke no other than spanish, watched tv in spanish and listen to radio in spanish. We got most of our education from school and I turned out just fine. What it is that the parents also have to be educated in those areas so that they can help their children. My family was lucky enough to have bilingual teachers that cared enough that we were fluent in both languages. I have built a great career in the financial world and that speakinf spanish only at home not only keep me fluent in my parents native language but also I can help others.

Answer 5

While I do believe that adopting English as a national language could only benefit the United States, I don't believe in focusing education on passing tests.

That's almost fraudulent, if you think about it. The purpose of standardized testing is to guage the quality of our education system, so that we can improve our teaching techniques. Our education system should not be based on meeting test quotas, but on teaching children.

Hispanic kids need an education, too. And, until congress gets off its backside and actually makes a decision to establish a national language, there's nothing that can be done about the disparity.

The right thing to do is to keep on teaching, like the tests weren't even there.

In the mean time, keep calling your representatives. We're going to have to annoy them into doing what needs to be done.

Answer 6

You never heard of ESO classes? And is good to speak lots of languages for your future. If you don't like to public school system maybe you should think about a privet school, they may have less Latin children. My son's school is 75% Spanish and they been A+ school for 6 years in a role. Maybe is the school that your children is going. Don't blame on kids or parents i wish the schools have more teachers and more class rooms that way less kids in class room and they learn better.

Answer 7

Spanish was the first language that i learned and I was always above average on all the state tests and i've been in gate classes since i was in second grade so i'm pretty sure that it doesn't affect us the way you think it does!

Answer 8

Spanish was my first language and I was ALWAYS above average on all the state tests, believe me it doesn't affect us the way you think it does

Answer 9

i agree with you i may not be spanish but i still think that spanish speaking peple should still learn just a little bit of engish. (no offense if you are spanish) almost all of my friends are spanish but they can stil speak a little bit of english even if they have an accent.

Answer 10

You are absolutely right and it is so nice of you to volunteer to go in and do family literacy with them to help improve the state testing.

Answer 11

Yes, they are. If I moved to Mexico, I would speak Spanish.