My latest column in The Stranger is up
With all the concerns about outsourcing, I was curious to learn we're now outsourcing education to Mexico, which ranks last among major nations in educational achievement. In a recent teleconference with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Governor Christine Gregoire announced a high school curriculum from the Mexican government that "will allow 55,000 Latino students in Washington to take school classes online in Spanish."Read the whole thing. The governor's press release announcing this program is here. And see the OSPI's data for yourself on the failure of the state's "transitional bilingual education" system to actually help English learners transition into English proficiency.There's not much substance yet. The program's objective is to offer limited-English speakers an alternative for earning graduation credits. Sounds nice, but it's a cop-out: Already, tens of thousands of Spanish-speaking students languish indefinitely in "transitional bilingual education" and never become functionally literate in English.
For the story, I contacted the OSPI (didn't get much help), the Governor's Office and the Yakima School District. Marsha Richards pointed me towards certain resources. I also spoke with my wife's cousin and older sister who immigrated from Korea in early elementary school without knowing any English. They shared their experiences in being English-only environments without bilingual instruction. Both did very well in school in spite of the burden of having to learn a new language from scratch. The cousin became a corporate lawyer and my sister-in-law earned a PhD in language acquisition and now teaches ESL and trains ESL teachers. I also spoke with my cousin who worked as a bilingual English/Spanish teacher for several years in schools serving migrant farmworkers' children in Long Beach and Salinas, California. The former bilingual student that I quoted in the column was one of my cousin's students. I believe that more children should transition into English-only instruction at a younger age, and that this Mexican online curriculum is a poor solution. But my cousin and his student also made some very good points about the benefits of some bilingual instruction in certain situations and their input helped me write a more balanced and complete story.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 05, 2005 04:12 PM | Email ThisWho knows. If it improves WASL scores for migrant workers' children then it might be a good pilot program for improving 99.9% of the other children not served by wasteful, progressive Washington education programs. Christine can pay WA teachers to log into computer providers in states that do the work that they should be capable of doing!
The best way to transition is immersion. Why they would want to do anything else has got to have a lot more to do with money and politics than education. And from the Fraudoire Administration. What a surprise.
Posted by: chuck Miller on June 5, 2005 05:27 PMIf you have a student that is "home schooled" and they participate in the district's special program for at least 10 hours per week, federal funds on that students behalf are sent to the district.
Posted by: who'dathunk on June 5, 2005 06:13 PMGet with the program, Stefan.
Posted by: Danny on June 5, 2005 06:24 PMHmmm. Maybe I like this idea.
Posted by: Dogbert on June 5, 2005 06:58 PMThis is definitely a publicity stunt for Latino votes. Gregoire probably realized that during the heat of the election contest would be a bad time to tell the illegal Latinos that they would be free to vote here, so she came up with something else to play up to their votes.
This is humorous, because she doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell at a second term, even if Bridges allows this sham of an election to stand.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 5, 2005 06:58 PMIf time allows, I would also suggest a plan for sending all of the illegal criminals back to Mexico so Mr. Fox can foot the bill.
Posted by: MauiBound on June 5, 2005 07:10 PMShe could have helped her case by vetoing the tax increases...saying that she won't overturn the will of the citizens as experssed in the initiatives that now seem almost worthless. She should have definately stayed away from this ridiculous "education" program.
If a re-vote was ordered, she could run on a much more reasonable record and tried to elicit some sympathy from the voters. She basically did the opposite and ran to the left. If she won in court, she could show her "true colors" after this it was over. I don't know who is advising her but it's been terrible advice. She is extremely lucky the legislature didn't pass the "civil rights/special rights" for homosexuals bill. She would have signed it and talk about another nail in the coffin.
Just my $0.02
Mark
Posted by: Mark D on June 5, 2005 07:39 PMThis fries me. I wrote to the Gov, & my elected's in opposition to it. I received a yadda-yadda canned response (or silence) that this "makes sense" to have "educated adults" and it "didn't cost WA taxpayers anything" since MEXICO authored it.
What an insult is right! Catering to illegal aliens? Many of those "lesson patrons" are trespassing here illegally, but everyone seems to gloss over that point. What about our OWN citizens? What about our OWN (home-grown) curricula? Why the hell do we need a FOREIGN country to give us a lesson plan? Oh--and they politely said "no, this is not a challenge to our country's sovereignty." Oh yea?
How long would I last in Mexico insisting that THEY conform to MY needs as an illegal Yankee entrant with free schooling, free medicine and public aid? Wake up, America. You are giving away the store.
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on June 5, 2005 09:07 PMStefan, you used the "G"-word when you referred to CG.
"The governor's press release announcing this program is here."
You haven't given up on this election contest yet, have you?
Posted by: jmw on June 6, 2005 07:07 AM