Sacramento School: Hey, Let's Dumb Down Education for Immigrants!
A republic such as the one born 239 years ago tomorrow requires a populace capable of citizenship.
Unfortunately, a Sacramento city school district is doing everything it can to prevent children of immigrants from acquiring the skills of citizenship. The Sacramento City Unified School District's Board of Trustees has unanimously agreed to establish an ethnic studies pilot program because, as Drudge put it in a headline that is almost an oxymoron, eighty percent of the students in the school are minorities.
A news report says that the pilot program will be set up "in collaboration with community organizations, local university professors and college students." This is being done because "minority students feel culturally disconnected from the standard curriculum in high school, particularly in literature and history classes."
Of course they feel culturally disconnected: a "significant portion" are "English learners," which is a sly way of saying that they don't speak English. But that is not a reason to foist these vulnerable young people off upon a rogues gallery of professors and other liberal interest groups, who will make it more likely that they will remain “English learners” and practically ensure that they never meet Jane Austen or Nathaniel Hawthorn and learn the facts about their adopted country’s historic development.
That is a travesty. I once had the privilege of reading essays for an English as a Second Language (ESOL) essay contest. Essayists, all recent immigrants, all hard at work mastering English in a program staffed by volunteers, were asked to write about a Founder who had special significance for them. The essay I recall most vividly was by a young man from Africa. The English was halting but the essay nevertheless managed eloquence: James Madison was the essayist's particular hero because Madison stood against the kind of tyranny the young man had known. This was a recent immigrant on the path to citizenship and assimilation. Thank goodness he hadn't gotten sidelined by in a woefully politically-correct Sacramento public school!
Admittedly the Sacramento public school system faces a demanding situation--according to the news report, forty-four recognized languages are spoken by the student body. Logically, that would provide a rationale for assimilation, unifying the student body by placing a premium on English skills rather than furthering cultural fragmentation. But logic is not the strong point of Sacramento School: Hey, Let's Dumb Down Education for Immigrants! - Charlotte Hays - Page 1: