Is this fair?

A health insurance provider in our state just granted children up to the age of 19 a totally free health insurance plan for two years....if they are undocumented.

A majority of people here have NO health insurance for their kids...citizens who were born here. They cannot afford it.

Wow.

Original Post by brtaylor:

Not to belabor the issue, but my biggest source of confusion is why anyone has a problem at all with people speaking Spanish.  I think it's a beautiful language. 

Is it that people are uncomfortable and/or afraid when they can't understand what a person is saying?  I can't think of any other logical, across-the-board reason why someone would care whether or not another person spoke English.

 

 I don't think it's so much that. 

I think it's more that not speaking English in the United States makes it hard for immigrants to function in society.  Even something as simple as going shopping or going to parent-teacher conferences.

On a side note, Pgeorgian, I'm all for teaching classes in multiple languages.  If the parents work here, then they are paying taxes.  Some of those taxes go to the schools, so why not?  I guess my only question is how do we go about it?  Do we only include Spanish because it's the second most popular?  What about the poor kid who comes here from Japan?  How do we go about teaching him/her as equally as those who speak English and Spanish?

Original Post by monarch777:

Well, I guess they have more rights than the kids who are poor and were born here. If they are going to take care of kids...they should take care off ALL the kids who need help. Not just a select group.

Chew on that.

I agree with this. Children can't help where they were born or into what circumstances. I didn't take this as saying that the undocumented kids shouldn't get treatment, just as saying that the kids who were born here but have families that can't afford it should have access to treatment too.

Original Post by peaches0405:

 I don't think it's so much that. 

I think it's more that not speaking English in the United States makes it hard for immigrants to function in society.  Even something as simple as going shopping or going to parent-teacher conferences.

 I can understand that.  But how does that affect YOU as an English speaker?  I would think it's more a problem for the person who is having trouble functioning in society... And again, just because they can't speak English doesn't necessarily mean they are unwilling to learn. 

 

Japanese school children are required to take English as a second language. But I understand what you are saying.

I think we can see that it is reasonable to include Spanish, because of the number of Spanish-speaking students. The number of Lithuanian immigrants, for instance, is clearly much lower - so there would be very little fiscal justification for including Lithuanian in the curriculum.

Gotcha.  So the next question would be how do we decide which schools are fiscally justified to include classes taught in Spanish?  Obviously a grade school with 5 Spanish speaking students out of 500 might not be justified.  Nor would it make sense financially.  Should it be 10% of the population? 40%?

Edit:  We've got teachers being laid off left and right.  Classes are being cut.  Whole programs are being cut.  Another question would be where do we get the money to add whole classes in Spanish?  We already lack the money to teach proper English to kids who already speak it.

We don't seem to be having teacher layoffs here. But we have the lottery funding to help with eduction in Florida.

I guess in a state in which there are layoffs of teachers, there would need to be some sort of magnate bi-lingual school in dense immigrant areas? That would at least consolidate the effort.

Original Post by pgeorgian:

Original Post by peaches0405:

No, I don't think the thread has gotten racist.  There is a diference between race and ethnicity.  I just think the thread has broadened to include all sorts of isses that have to do with immigration.  This of course would include language issues.

yeah, the difference between race and ethnicity is that ethnicity actually exists.  and that we don't have a word that conveys prejudice based on ethnicity.

"Ethnocentricity", maybe?

on the language thing - kill two birds with one stone

use immersion for all kids - make every elementary school an immersion school

this means that english-speaking american kids will start kindergarten learning a 2nd language and will be fluent in it by the 2nd grade  (some schools could do spanish immersion, some could do japanese immersion, some could do cantonese immersion, some could do russian immersion - whatever the community wants, it can be done)

do the same thing in reverse for children of immigrants so that they have teachers who are multilingual (can understand them in their native language) but only english may be spoken in class

when you get these kids in Kindergarten or 1st grade - it's amazing how quickly they can learn to speak a language, even one they've never heard before

edit to add: children who learn a foreign language tend to understand English grammar better when they begin English classes, which at my daughter's school was in 2nd grade

You could even encourage private tutoring within these communities. Maybe a matching funds program to get kids up to speed as soon as possible?

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

on the language thing - kill two birds with one stone

use immersion for all kids - make every elementary school an immersion school

this means that english-speaking american kids will start kindergarten learning a 2nd language and will be fluent in it by the 2nd grade  (some schools could do spanish immersion, some could do japanese immersion, some could do cantonese immersion, some could do russian immersion - whatever the community wants, it can be done)

do the same thing in reverse for children of immigrants so that they have teachers who are multilingual (can understand them in their native language) but only english may be spoken in class

when you get these kids in Kindergarten or 1st grade - it's amazing how quickly they can learn to speak a language, even one they've never heard before

 Even better.

Heh. My dad started kindergarten only being able to speak Slovenian because he spent so much time with his immigrant grandparents. :)

Original Post by peaches0405:

Gotcha.  So the next question would be how do we decide which schools are fiscally justified to include classes taught in Spanish?  Obviously a grade school with 5 Spanish speaking students out of 500 might not be justified.  Nor would it make sense financially.  Should it be 10% of the population? 40%?

Edit:  We've got teachers being laid off left and right.  Classes are being cut.  Whole programs are being cut.  Another question would be where do we get the money to add whole classes in Spanish?  We already lack the money to teach proper English to kids who already speak it.

schools are funded and classes are provided based on the number of students enrolled.  regardless of languages, a school with X number of students can afford to hire Y number of teachers.  teachers who can speak and teach the right languages are going to have advantages in certain districts, but additional language classes don't affect the number of jobs available. 

Original Post by kathygator:

You could even encourage private tutoring within these communities. Maybe a matching funds program to get kids up to speed as soon as possible?

one of our libraries solicits volunteers to practice speaking english with a recent immigrant

so it's free to the immigrant and the to taxpayer

and you get to teach immigrants to speak with a southern accent if you want

>;D

Heh.. Never a bad thing - IMO. :D

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

on the language thing - kill two birds with one stone

use immersion for all kids - make every elementary school an immersion school

this means that english-speaking american kids will start kindergarten learning a 2nd language and will be fluent in it by the 2nd grade...

Where are all these multilingual teachers going to come from? and are we just going to fire all the current teachers who don't speak another language? 

let's send all our teachers to other countries to teach english to their kids and while they're there, they have to enroll in college classes to become fluent in a 2nd language while at the same time, we choose teachers from other countries to come here --- most teachers in other countries already speak english

it's a 2 year program and then we switch back! (it's called VIF or visiting international faculty)

OR...

we decide to implement new requirements in universities so that to remain accredited, they have to produce bilingual teachers in their degree programs and phase the changes in over time (but this is a much more boring option)

I went to a Spanish immersion magnet school from K to 12th grade. We learned in English for half a day and in Spanish for half a day. The English half was dedicated to grammar, spelling, social studies and history - the Spanish half was dedicated to science, math and latin american culture.

Some of my classmates were the children of immigrants, and entered the program only speaking Spanish. The rest of us only spoke English in the beginning. By about 4th grade, we were all pretty fluent in both.

I just wanted to mention that being a white person and having learned in Spanish has not ruined my life, it has enriched it. Theres nothing even remotely scary or threatening about kids being taught in Spanish.

The kid is required to take a second language as a history major. Obviously Spanish is the smart choice. :)

Original Post by azirra:

I just wanted to mention that being a white person and having learned in Spanish has not ruined my life, it has enriched it. Theres nothing even remotely scary or threatening about kids being taught in Spanish.

 Oh I don't think it's scary at all.  We are behind in times BECAUSE we have refused to make 2nd languages a priority.  I just worry about the money aspect when you get really involved in the process and really look at what all is going to be needed.

It's easy to say "we need this and we need that" and so on.  It's not always easy to come up with the money to do it.  Maybe if we have the right people in office, this will finally become a priority.

And that's certainly fair, Peaches.

I do think as more of our younger teachers migrate into the work force, however, they will inherantly be able to converse bi-lingually. The long term question of cost will be answered, so we really only need to insure these kids have a shot in the short term, IMO.

I do think it's fair. It is the company's money and that makes it their right to do with it what they please. It's unfortunate that they can't help everyone. I'm happy that someone is helping somebody else out though.