News-Record.com

Two thoughts.

If you drop middle schools from your calculations (they all offer foreign language) then what are the % of Title 1 verses all schools-- I know at our school we have wanted to hire a foreign language teacher, but with cuts per student we can't do it (Non-title 1)-- we would have to cut art or music.

Second thought-- if you can't read/write in English then that should be the first priority, not the extras. That time should be spent on basics not extras, and yes I know that sounds harsh, but the world in a mean, mean place! (and today I must be one of them)

Any goal that Grier and the board had of students being "proficient" in a foreighn language, is not realistic. I truly think they they were using the word "proficient" without understanding the full scope of proficiency in a second language. It would be impossible for students to become "proficient" in a second language just by it being offered everyday--even if offered every school day through 12th grade.

Again this was one of Grier's "thought-of-it-in-the-middle-of-the-night ideas" that didn't/couldn't pan out.

Now to offer a language with the goal being mere "exposure" to the language, that would be more realistic and expected. It should be a given that children be offered a foreign language beginning in kindergarten. Just knowing the basics of another language/culture sets up the child to wonder and be curious about other parts of the world. But again, this is Guilford County and the fact that languages are not offered in 100% of the schools does not surprise me. Grier would rather pad his wallet and resume then actually fill the kids of the county with knowledge.

He needs to grab his dictionary and look up "proficient" and then re-word any foreign language goals (if any) he tries to implement in the future.

Our students need to be proficient in reading,writing, and speaking ENGLISH first!!!!!

Let's work on becoming "proficient" at that!!

I don't know if I'd pooh-pooh foreign language so quickly folks. Look at Jones Elementary, one of the district's consistently high-performing elementary schools.

In 2004-05, nearly 95 percent of students passed state tests and the school met AYP. That year, about 55 percent of students were poor enough to qualify for federally subsidized meals.

If you don't know, Jones is a Spanish Immersion magnet school. Students learn Spanish from Day 1. And I'm not kidding. Even kindergartners who don't speak a word of Spanish by the end of the day are responding to directions in Spanish. I've watched myself.

They also are taught most other subjects in Spanish.

Jennifer,

Sounds like Jones is doing a really good job!

Just curious....are there any stats that shows how those same students perform once they are out of Jones.

That would probably help to identify if its the foreign lang., the leadership at the school., the discipline, the support of family and/or community., etc.

I really think if as a district we could pinpoint what works, we could emulate it in other areas. Trouble is, we are so busy implementing "new" programs, moving staff, busing students, etc. that there is no consistency. The constant change makes it hard to determine what our successes and failures can be attributed to.

Just my .02 worth.

Alas, I must correct your list a wee bit, Jennifer. Brooks Global has dropped its Japanese program this new school year. Spanish will be taught instead.

Parents apparently clamoured for it. Guess they think it would be better to prepare students to deal with the influx of immigrants than for world business.

Spanish will not be one of the main languages for international banking and business for some time to come.

One of the Chinese languages would have been a better choice, frankly. I suspect we will have a century or more of Chinese dominance in world economics.

Jennifer, if you think adding a foreign language program to a school miraculously fixes its problems to enable it to pass AYP's, then you must be dreaming the same dream that Grier is dreaming. Also, if it was so miraculous, you'd see it in all GC schools.

I tend to think Kay is on to something in that something is working at Jones, it's not the fact that they are learning Spanish. Not to dis your heritage,Jennifer; and not to dis any Spanish programs, because I think they are a great addition to any already good curriculum....but that's the problem, GC doesn't have an "already good curriculum" as a base.

So I don't think folks are "poo-pooing" the subject of Spanish, I think they are poo-pooing the idea that it's a quick-fix. There are other schools that consistently pass AYP's and do not offer Spanish.

To answer Debora, the percentage of Title I elementary schools that taught a foreign language was 22 percent last year, compared to about 25 percent of all elementary schools. (There were no Title I high schools last year and all the high schools offer something).

To answer Freddy, these numbers were for the 05-06 school year. I won't know this year's until school starts.

I'm also curious to see if students who study a language (i.e. Japanese, Latin) in elementary school will be able to go to a neighboring or same district middle/high school to study the same language.

Dora,

I never said teaching a foreign language "miraculously fixes" a school's problems or makes it meet AYP.

Someone said the district should focus on teaching English and the other basics instead of worrying about foreign language. I was just pointing out a case where using foreign language as a vehicle to teach the basics was working successfully. So those kids are not only learning the basics, they're getting an extra skill that will be highly useful in today's world.

Kay,

Unfortunatly, the transition to middle school often wipes out the gains that many students made at the elementary level.

Educators have long sought ways to deal with this issue. It is why many districts adopted the middle school model (team teaching, more like an elementary school set up) in place of the old junior high, which was really a high school in miniature.

And it is why across the nation today you'll see some districts are dropping middle schools in favor of K-8 schools.

It is amazing how Grier comes up with this stuff!
What an Idea man!!!!!

I think it is good to learn a language but not at the expense of something more crucial like becoming proficient in our own language.

Some of these kids along with their parents do not have the command of the English language. If you don't believe it, watch the County Commissioners meetings, and you will be able to pick out who could speak with proficiency and who can not! Also my daugher was in a language class where kids were taking the class for the third time. I remember her commenting on how can they learn another language when they don't know English that well?

Also I think Grier should concentrate on the programs that require fluency like the IB program at Central. It is absurd that they are on a block schedule and the students are required to
be fluent in another language. How can that happen when they can't take the fourth level of a language until the 2nd semester? I think the central office should reimburse me the amount I spent on tutoring this summer.

Here's an idea for ya, Dr. Grier: Stop being an idea man and start educating with the basics first!!!!

Sorry, Morgan, for confusing your bylines. This tag-team reporting can get tricky for me to follow.

For all you "English first" (or is it "English only"?) advocates: no one is suggesting we teach LESS English, for pete's sake. Children can learn more than one language much more easily than we dull-minded adults. After the early teens, it gets significantly harder to retrain the mouth and brain to make the neural and muscular switches needed. And learning another language is a great way to IMPROVE English understanding, of grammmar and syntax, of word origin and especially of cultural context. I learned Latin and French in school, studied more French as an oldster, picked up Italian on a 9-week summer semester, and am now signed up for German at the college. I have been dabbling, poorly, in Japanese with a computer program, to help me while reading about Japanese philosophy and aesthetics.

I fully intend to teach and speak to my child in more than one language, whenever possible, and will only choose a school that offers early and continued study of languages beside English.

Freddy, you don't get it. GC is doing a MISERABLE job at teaching ENGLISH! That is the point that many are trying to make.

It has nothing to do with Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin or any other potential language. Many just would like to see GC become competent at teach Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Then, and only then would it be reasonable to add new programs.

From your last sentence I can only guess that any Niche children will be schooled OUTSIDE of the Guilford system--congrats, it's the ONLY way to go.

Non, mon frere, it is you who don't get it.

So, are the teachers doing a terrible job teaching English in GCS? Or are students so overwhelmed by tests they've lost their love of learning? And if the stuff is crammed down their throats as drills, why should we be surprised?

Children excel at more of their subjects when their neural circuitry enhanced. That's why people who learn more than one language generally get better grades overall. And why rote memorization of one "right way" to speak, think and believe utterly fails every student. Wake Forest has done some excellent studies bearing this out, with higher SATs, GPAs and future success at college for those who master more than one language.

Now, if your aim is to just make them all C business majors who golf, keep 'em stupid and happy, with lots of sports. Heck, make'em into PE majors, aka, coaches. Or pseudo-CSI forensickos. Or occupational therapists: we'll lots of bedpan emptiers for the retiring boomers. And grave-diggers. If the Chinese don't bury us first, that is.

Of course, we all know it's popularity contests that get you jobs, right? It's "who you know", not "what you know". That stacks the deck against otherwise hungry kids who would respond wonderfully to strong foreign language components, to scintillating science and higher math as early as possible, and other truly engaging ideas.

But, no, let's drill 'em with the 3 Rs.

Why is Eastern Guilford Middle school closed
to everyone and why is there a security guard
posted at the front door to "keep the media out"?

This is to hide the fact that closing the gymnasium all year did nothing to protect our students from a collapsing roof. They were in danger all year because the entire roofing system is now being replaced at Hairston, Kernodle, and Eastern Guilford! We were told last year in the "News-Record" that only the gymnasiums were affected by the problem of an unstable roofing system. The students were unable to use the gymnasiums all year due to the safety hazard, yet now the entire roofing system is being repaired. The hazard was the entire school...not just the gymnasium.

Why the cover up "News-record"???
Why the cover up "school board"???
Will the work be completed in time for teachers to return to their classrooms???
Will it be done right this time??

There are several schools of Excellence that do not teach any foreign language. So there may be other factors working at Jones.

I have a friend (a black veteran teacher) who taught for many years in a school with children of low socioeconomic means. She said these children did well in Spanish because the English grammar they heard at home was so bad or nill, that many children were developmentally delayed (speech included). Spanish was new to them. They didn't hear it at home spoken incorrectly.

When students are taking a class in a foreign language they are corrected if they speak or write incorrectly. They are graded on this. This is not so during every day speaking, writing of the English language. Why is poor "English" not corrected?

Is this what diversity means to let children continue to speak, read and write English poorly.

I agree that an introduction of a second language would be great but that the basics should be taught first. Reading well in English, our native language.

Several years ago I had a government brochure that stated that NC required a second language to be taught in elementary school. When I called Raleigh to inquire they told me all schools do not teach a second language due to lack of funds. So why have this requirement in listed in the first place.

Rumor has it that Eastern Guilford Middle school will not be opening on time due to the construction to repair the roofing system.

Rumor has it from the construction workers that one heavy snow or strong wind could have caused the cafeteria to collapse before the gym would have collapsed because it was in worse shape. Yet the
gym is what was closed to the students all year,
while they continued to use the cafeteria.

There is a security guard posted at the form door
to keep the "media" out of the school.
He is doing such a good job I think he should run for the school board.

Basics First: "...English, our native language". (Please pardon the fragment of your fragment.)

Isn't this a bit presumptuous? I maintain it is not even true.

There are many people in "our" country with full-citizen status who either still do live in or once belonged to tribes and nations where some other language was or is spoken. A number of Native American languages, in fact, are now in terrible danger of total extinction. Perhaps you would prefer it that way?

Technically and historically, English isn't anyone's "native language". It is a bastard child and always has been. The early Brits got it combining Germanic Saxon with pagan Angle, throwing in a bit of French and tapping other Latinate roots. The many branches and streams of English continue to add bits of street slang, Hispanic and even Asian terms. This indeterminacy is actually one of this mongrel's strengths: by adapting continuously, some types of English (especially "Americanized") have become among the most spoken styles of communication in the world, aside from Cantonese (and aside from nonverbal languages which are almost "universal"). I recommend, by the way, the very accessible "Story of English" book and series by Robert McNeil. It stops in the early 1990s, though; I am sure there are even livelier updates in the scholarly research.

>"When students are taking a class in a foreign language they are corrected if they speak or write incorrectly. They are graded on this. This is not so during every day speaking, writing of the English language. Why is poor "English" not corrected?....Is this what diversity means to let children continue to speak, read and write English poorly."

I am glad to see you use the quotation marks around "English" here. Maybe you agree with me it is an open concept? If, however, you are meaning to imply someone else's so-called "English" really isn't...well...

You might try a comma after "language" and possibly after "means"; although a colon or semi-colon may work as well. You don't need that one after "speaking" and might want to plug in an "and" there, instead. I'd give you a B for punctuation. Less for rhetoric.

So, do you propose, Basics First, that we institute an all-knowing Board of Proper English? Does such a thing exist?

Perhaps we should force everyone in the U.S. to speak some magically perfected form of English. As a Connecticut farmboy Yankee here in Greensboro for twenty years, I can tell you, that will be a hard thing to define. Do we outlaw "y'all"? "Might could"? And what about the incredibly annoying and "incorrect" pronunciation of the short "i", as in, "Ah went up the 'heel'"? (Actually, all three are endearing permutations.)

Are any of us, including those in DPI or GCS Central Office, to be deigned the Henry Higgins par excellence to dictate the proper way to speak English?

Not one of you has given any shred of convincing argument to counter the many studies that show learning second (and third and fourth!) languages does, indeed, stimulate the brain's neural pathways and leads to better overall cognitive skills. No, students may not continue with it through middle school and up (which is a crying shame), but is that reason to dumb things down in elementary schools, where all children have the most flexibility to begin this particular branch of learning? Or should we begin barricading those passageways just as young brains are most wide? Beyond lies high school, where the best openings for rewiring the brain are rapidly closing. By the evidence of this blog, after high school, the doors seemed locked tight!

Oh, yeah, I forgot; some people might prefer their children not exceed themselves in intelligence and language ability. Makes us feel inadequate and all.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot; some people might prefer their children not exceed themselves in intelligence and language ability. Makes us feel inadequate and all."

Speak for yourself, Freddy.

Freddy,

In order to teach a secondary language in elementary school - which existing subject would you discontinue?

Freddy, I believe that you're aroused by your own verbose posts.

When you have a child enrolled IN a Guilford county school, then check back in here at the chalkboard. I'm sure your concerns will then be greater than the semantics of another's post.

My "verbosity" is admitted. I apologize, but I was correcting Basics because of her/his previous presumptions about "correct" English and "native " language.

Secondary languages can be used to actually teach other subjects, in some part! Why not have teachers include the Spanish or French or even Japanese (depending on the language featured at the school) for various common terms, or specific subject terms? Kids love knowing the "other word for" something, as they learn about new ideas. They are naturally curious at a younger age.

For the grammar and other aspects of the language, I suggest on-off weeks or days between immersion-style classes, rotated with other "specials".

Freddy,

All of your suggestions are great but....how would they help out Terry Grier's resume?

Also, you never mention D-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y.

Don't lose sight of the priorities 'round here, Freddy!

Freddy,

I'm trying to follow you, but my mind is not very complex.

My daughter has 5 "specials" at school - art, music, computer lab, media, pe. There's only one slot allocated during the school day for a "special". Which of the above do you propose dropping so that my daughter can take a secondary language?

Oh, and by the way, my daughter who is is elementary school - does not have Social Studies and Science every day. She has one or the other. She takes one unit of Science, followed by 2 or 3 units of Social Studies, etc.

I'm already frustrated that Science is not a required subject of study for elementary kids.

Is it no wonder that India and China are eating our engineering lunches?

Freddy's kids will know the "other word for" daddy is "major geek"!

Hullo Chawkbored reeders,

Cud yall hellup me? I need a job. I work good. I don't steenk, I can reed and rite perdy gud. Im a grad of this heer system in Gifford and i wanna make my mama and diddy proud.

If U got work U kneed done, gist let me no.

Thanks. Oh and i can speek a little Spanish to.

Haha, cute post, Gifford.

Sorry far-reaching, globally-curious intellect (which you adolescently see as a "geek" trait) is scary to you, not impressed. I suppose you prefer sporty jocks and bottom-line, preppy business types. Or maybe just know-nothing xenophobes.

Numbers, thank you for the numbers. I was not aware so much was crammed into the specials every week, though I knew it was a lot. I will find out what my wife's school teaches and how they juggled their foreign language around the basics and the specials. They make it work: they are a school with higher-than-average minority populations (close to 50%, I believe) and have among the highest EOGs, ABCs and AYPs.

I, too, would not want to see any of the other "specials" demoted, as an professional actor, artist and sometime musical performer myself. I agree the knowledge of science (including evolutionary theory and sex education, by the way) is crucial to our children's future in the world economy.

Thanks for being strict with me about having a more concrete plan. I will do more research to have a more complete response. At this point, I do know there are way too many tests taken throughout the school grades, and if we dropped some of the more onerous and stupid ones, we'd free up a lot of instructional time.

By the way, Numbers, why do you think they have "computer lab" AND "media"? Are they making movies? Or is that, as I suspect, the current code word for "library", except we don't want to let on the kids might actually go and read a book?

Kids will learn computers at home and from friends. Especially in early grades, the less time spent on them during school hours, the better.

Fred,

If kids can learn computer at "home and from friends" then they can learn their foreign language there too. My kids are already learning another language on their loooong bus rides to and from school...I'm not sure what you call it but it's definitely foreign to me.

I knew my computer comment would get a reaction. Of course, it would be better if we also gave the poorest children, at least, one of unde- $100 crank-up computers to have at home.

Oh, and it is very, very difficult for a student to learn another language at home, unless the parents speak it. Having others to both lead you through the grammar and especially having others to talk to in the language makes all the difference. Computers, on the other hand, seem to be in the new generation's genes.

Freddie,

My daughter was taught a foreign language when she was in the first and second grades. We lived in PA at the time. It was one of the special classes taught one day a week. The other four were library, PE, music, and art. She was also exposed to computer education because each classroom had one computer for every two children. Thus, she used the computer everyday for various in-class assignments.

Spanish was taught for half a year and French the other half. I thought it was great and she picked up on the words quickly. At first and second grade she was mainly taught the days of the week, months, colors, etc., but I think it was a great benefit to be exposed to these languages at such a young age. I was disappointed when I learned a foreign language was not available in elementary school down here.

Just wanted to let you know I agree with you on this.

Sandy

wait just a dadblasted minute!! up yonder on that ther commint bye freddy whatshisname with the funny squiggly over the E, freddy refered to hisself as "an professional actor". yep its the won from 5:39 today.

i believe he dun guufed up by usin "an" instead of "a". wooooo-doggies i guess we all make misteaks inkloodin mr. freddy.

and boy howdy i just been thinkin its just precious that mr freddy is a dadgum artist and dancer and performer. he must a learnt that in won of them big cities. knot hear in gifford.

Oxford English allows "an" when followed by an adjective beginning with a consonant, if the noun it modifies begins with a vowel. Sorry, my geeky training in Shakespeare makes me goof up a lot. It is obviously archaic form. I also left the "r" off of "under". Poor typing skills to blame, there.

Thanks, Sandy. Glad someone can vouch for the advantages of multiple language learning for their child. Thanks for pointing out the computer work doesn't take up its own "special" in PA. Good to hear. PA is among the most successful states for percentages of graduations and college entry, I believe. They also pay their teachers close to the highest salaries in the country.

Freddy,

That's a very interesting grammatical use of the indefinite article "an". Would you provide a reference that shows that "an" when followed by an adjective beginning with a consonant, if the noun it modifies begins with a vowel is proper grammar. Proper grammar says that "a" is used before a word beginning with a consonant sound, regardless of its spelling, and "an" is used before a word beginning with a vowel sound, with the exception of a common variant before words beginning with h in which the first syllable was unstressed.

I'll dig up my Shakespeare.

Anna even iffa I canna find it immediately, you'll recall I was the one questioning there being a definitive "proper English" when Basics First was clamouring for grading every student on their everyday speech. Mea culpa, of course, if I make "mistakes" (are there mistakes in understood English of any kind?).

Wittgenstein argued that language means what people intend it to mean, no matter the "dictionary definition", as long as it makes logical sense to the intended audience. I usually follow the very rule you note, but for "actor/artist", my profession(s), I occasional lapse into how I learned lines from various roles. Shakespeare himself was guilty of "breaking the rules" by the standards of his day, even (when people spoke something in London very akin to the Outer Banks, I read).

But this is hardly the issue at point. Do we wish our students to be hobbled by the time they get to high school and have lost precious time to learn a new language? Or do we expect the new century to kowtow to Americans in speech across the globe?

Quick jaunts online turn up many Shakespearean uses of "an" for places we would say the rule requires simply "a"; and even the modified noun itself often begins with a consonant. Thus, my understanding of the allowance was stricter, not losser:

Twelfth Night: "An very-old sad song is better, to soothe the mood of a troubled lover..."
Othello: "an holy hermit" (of course, the letter "H" is occasionally aspirated, rather than vocalized, so it is closer to a vowel: As You Like It has "an holy day's work"; The Book of Common Prayer, which many scholars attribute in part to Shakespeare, includes "an holy worship" and the King James Bible has it repeatedly; Thomas Hull's 18th century adaptation of A Comedy of Errors has "an holy mandate"...but maybe that's an purposeful error?)

Here's a later writer: "I desire an special interest in your prayers that my faith fail not in the day of adversity."
John Hawley

For current accepted (or recomended) usage, however, the OED and its offices state:

"A" Versus "An"
"A" is used before words that begin with consonant sounds (a rock, a large park) and "an" is used before vowel sounds (an interesting subject, an apple).

However, note that the choice of a or an depends on pronunciation, not spelling (hence my note before about "H". Many words that begin with the vowel -u- are preceded by a instead of an because the -u- spelling is often pronounce -yu-, as in useful ("a useful idea"), and uranium ("a uranium isotope"). In addition, in a few words borrowed from French, the initial consonant -h- is not pronounced: an heir to the throne, an hour-long lecture, an honorable agreement, etc.

That was actually from RPI; here's the Oxford site:
http://12.107.205.43/worldofwords/wordfrom/aitches/

Freddy,

You stated the following:

"But this is hardly the issue at point. Do we wish our students to be hobbled by the time they get to high school and have lost precious time to learn a new language? Or do we expect the new century to kowtow to Americans in speech across the globe? "

My priority continues to be Science and the lack of teaching of that subject matter in elementary school. A second language may be a good idea, I won't debate that with you - but I truly believe that Science should take priority here.

We should all be demanding that Science be taught every single day in elementary school. The only reason I know that it's not is that neither the State ABC's nor NCLB require Science testing in elementary grades.

If we can't continue to produce leading scientists and inventors in this country, then that's a real tragedy.

Numbers,
Actually, science is on deck (to steal a sports term). The first EOG science administration is spring 2008, according to DPI. Check it out at www.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/testing/eog/science/

Ah gots heard enough o' dis whack Shakespeare crap. You know das right! Lets git back ta da main subject. Ya' dig?

Da second language in dis here county (brace yoself foo!) sho 'nuff needs to be EBONICS. Dat iz what we's learn at da hood an dat is pimp-tight! Don't make me shank ya!

If ah gots ta jet ta skoo an git dat boil on mah ass ah needs ta feel confident.

PS...Ah scart to be around men dat get jiggy wit it like Freddy Niche. Sos ah hope we's dont gots ta study Shakespeare.

Ya' know what I'm sayin'?

I am with you, Numbers, about the importance of science to our curricula. Now, when that comes on board, as Jennifer indicates, we'll really start to see a hue and cry about which subjects have to take a back seat. Specials will be the first targets, of course; although many studies continue to support the evidence for higher aptitude in math, science and language arts related to more music and arts.

As for Ebonics, I think Sam Clemens and Toni Morrison, among others, have shown its like has been invigoating for literature. I would not lightly dismiss it. So, I welcome true appreciators of its powers for communicative joy and energy, though I admit my own skills pale beside it.

Please forgive my silence, I could not keep keyboard quite any longer. That he has failed in teaching our children to read, write and do math at a notional level now qualifies him to help our children fail at another language equally as well? Back to basics, get our kids into college at a footing equal to other states! Because we are perfroming almost as poorly as other poorly performing districts is not success it is failure!

Back to basics and quite derailing the issue, we must improve on the basics first!

Garth, I cannot wait untill you get on the BOE. It is December not January.

Numbers

thank you for explaining where the heck extra specials could fit in. remember PE will now be taught more than once a week in elementary school. more PE teachers are being hired.

along with science and social studies which barely fits in a day, there is also Health and special assemblies.

teachers DO NOT want their day lengthened anymore than it is.

perhaps Freddie can find his niche and figure this out. he seems to know everything else.

from what I understand English would be considered the language of the US since that is what our leaders speak, our news announcers speak, our major TV programs are produced in, our college professors teach, our immigrants had to learn when they came from Europe at the turn of the century. it sure sounds Native to me.

Garth,

That's why we love you.

Yep and that's why we love you. Your workers are ready to start in action when the time comes.

The time is now to start really working on EDUCATION.

Change is a good think. This county needs to wake up.

oops, a typo

I meant to say "good thing". Thought I would correct this before Freddie had nothing else to do with his time again.

Nah, nothing but pack for a move and create seven new artworks. It's called mulittasking, I guess.

I am all about typos, Basics. But maybe we should go back to requiring students (especially girls) to take typing classes, eh? The corporate world which would like us to crank out drones would approve. The patrons of society want the masses kept under constant drumbeaten boredom. AYPs and their ilk are just another in the long line going back to the late 19th century.

In the 1840s, white citizens were near 100% literate. They often ended schooling by early teens. They read Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson and Thoreau. Ram the "basics" down a kid's bored brain, and they will throw up their hands and cry "I hate reading". By the early 1900s, whites read at about 90% and blacks at 80% literacy. What happened?

I get these numbers from "An Underground History of American Education" by JohnTaylor Gatto. Good book. I recommend people read it.

People started dropping out of school, having children out of wedlock and living off the government. They expected everything to be handed to them by "the man" instead of working for it. The breakdown of the family occurred.

I question your statistics on the 1840s white citizens were 100% literate. At the turn of the century, thousands of immigrants came from Europe. Many never learned to speak or write in English. Different nationalities stayed within their own communities in the cities. Laborers who spoke English were given the higher paying jobs in the steel mills and factories. There was a pecking order. As you stated somewhere yourself English is not the "Native" language. America is the melting pot.

Since I have returned the book to the library already, I will have to try to track down again where Gatto got his stats. It is possible the 1840 year is prior to the great flood of immigrantion you rightly recall. I wrote "early 1900s", and I believe the later 90/80 numbers reflect the 1930s or 40s. The push for industrialized education, though, came with Dewey and the aforementioned masters of capitalism before that. Thank you again for pointing to the "native" misnomer.

I don't think that 100% of whites were literate since many of my ancestors had to make their x on papers that I have found.

That's great, deb, that you have written records of your ancestors from the early 1800s! I am inclined to believe you are both correct, and Gatto's stats are skewed toward landowners only, who were the only ones who voted for many, many years in this country.

That said, it is true, though, that the reading lists for public ed in this country during the nineteenth century went far beyond what out own 10-year-olds supposedly "master".

How many of us were reading, say, Mark Twain at age 9 or so? On our own and unabridged? How many of us has ever even read the entirety of one of Thoreau's or Melville's works? Does it matter?

Only if you think our students today should be actually literate in literature, and not just "teen lit" or its equivalent. Or, worse, subjected to the dry-as-bones world of social studies, history, science and language arts textbooks.

The best education available today begins at the library.

Debora I have records too of my ancesters with "X" for the signature. My grandmother came to this country in her 20's in the late 1800s and died in her 80's. She still spoke very little English and could not write when she died. Her community spoke Polish. Catholic Mass was completely in Polish.

Another interesting fact is that the correct spelling of many European immigrants' names were changed when they were recorded at Ellis Island.

Another fact Freddy is that while many men might have learned to speak English while it was considered necessary for women. They were homemakers. Of course it would be only landowners, male, mentioned in many statistics.

The research on early foreign language programs is very clear: students in high quality, well-planned elementary foreign language programs have higher test scores in math and language arts than children who have no exposure to another language. This holds true across every demographic imaginable. Learning a foreign language at an early age IS basic and such study strengthens the other core subject areas - it does not detract from them. This seems counter-intuitive, I know, but it is true and has been borne out by many, many studies. As Jennifer noted, here in Guilford County, you only need look at the test scores produced by the children in immersion at Jones to see this.

One of the keys here is that you cannot implement an early FL program willy-nilly - it has to be well-planned. Until a month ago, GCS had no foreign language educator on staff. The immersion program at Jones is a carryover from the old Greensboro system and the administrator who planned it, hired the initial staff and trained them was a foreign language educator.

Research has shown that early, high quality foreign language exposure engenders brain development not fostered by other types of experiences. These brain-boosting benefits are the reason that all young children should have access to an elementary foreign language program. Of course, having the additional language skill is a great benefit too.

We know that a long sequence of foreign language study is most beneficial, and I would argue that GCS needs to focus on strengthening and expanding the programs that are currently offered. The children at most of the elementary schools with FL programs have nowhere to go at the middle school and high school levels. Spanish Immersion is the only program that has a middle school and high school track, and that articulation could be improved.

Once the current programs have been articulated appropriately, then we should look at expanding the elementary programs.

Cost-wise, immersion is the least expensive way to go, as well as the most effective way to teach a second language.

For additional reading, see
The Center for Applied Linguistics, www.cal.org;
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, www.actfl.org; The Alliance for Language Learning, www.allianceforlanguagelearning.org.

I have two children at Jones currently, as well as a niece who graduated from the immersion program, and I see the benefits every day, not just in the development of my own children, but in children from every corner of Guilford County, from every background imaginable.