Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
Posted on 11/09/2009 12:58:16 PM PST by KeyLargo
Arabic classes coming to three more Chicago schools
Mayor Daley announces grant, says he doesn't see Fort Hood shooting stoking anti-Muslim sentiment
November 9, 2009
By FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
The Chicago public schools will expand its Arabic-language program to three more high schools, thanks to a three-year, $888,000 federal grant announced this morning.
Mayor Daley accepted the grant at Durkin Park Elementary School, 8445 S. Kolin, as he rejected suggestions that the Fort Hood, Texas, massacre could lead to an outbreak of anti-Muslim sentiment.
“I don’t think so,” Daley said. “Every day, in society, someone’s being killed . . . . You don’t blame a group, you don’t blame a society or an immigrant community because of the actions of one group or one individual. You cannot say that.”
Already, Arabic is offered at three Chicago high schools — Lincoln Park, Roosevelt and Lindblom.
It’s also offered at seven Chicago elementary schools — Durkin Park, Agassiz, Belding, LaSalle Language Academy II, Marquette Tech and Volta.
In all, about 2,000 students take Arabic in Chicago’s schools.
The new federal grant, on top of $1.6 million in state and federal funds the schools already have gotten, will fund the expansion to three additional high schools that have yet to be identified.
The expansion will be enhanced by the use of technology-based instruction using the safari-blackboard virtual technology that will allow a teacher at one school to simultaneously offer a virtual class at another school as well. The teacher will change schools every two weeks so students will have personal interaction with a teacher.
Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.
This program is actually quite useful. After 9/11, our intelligence services found that we had a dearth of Americans who could translate Arabic to English. I know someone, a white dude, who strangely discovered after high school that he had a knack for foreign languages. He learned Arabic very quickly and now works for our intelligence services listening in on communications among the bad guys in the Middle East.
Creating Arabic language programs in high schools will allow the NSA, CIA, and others to find and recruit loyal Americans who have a proclivity for the language.
Aren’t you glad we’ve ruined our respective countries by letting these psychopaths in?
First teach them to speak ENGLISH!
“Dirka Dirka Muhammad Jihad”
“You don’t blame a group...”
Tell the Islamofacsists that. Death to infidels? Death to America?
Idiots.
“This program is actually quite useful.”
Agreed.
In Chicago? I don’t think so. Less than 30% even graduate from high school.
“First teach them to speak ENGLISH!”
BINGO!!
CORRECT answer.
These grants were started by President Bush for national security purposes. I’m more concerned with Chicago schools receiving so much $$$$$$ from the feds from this and whether they actually spend the $$$$$ on the intended programs. The same is true where we live. Last year, our school district announced massive layoffs of first, second, and third-year teachers. Included among these teachers were the ones teaching these critical languages. Our daughter was all upset because one of her teachers was on the list. I kept reassuring her that they could not get rid of her teacher without dropping the federal grant money. Of course, I was right, and the teacher is back this year.
If these federal grant monies are used according to design, they are a good thing. The kinds of students who are enrolling in these classes are not slackers nor jihadists.
I’d love to take Arabic. However, I don’t have a gift for languages. We NEED Americans to learn these languages. It increases our eyes and ears in the community.
I learned more English grammar when I took my first foreign language than I ever learned from English grammar class.
I basically agree. Arabic and Chinese are deemed “critical languages” under federal ed. policy. Essentially, we need more spies, intelligence workers, etc.
I would object, however, if Arabic was being taught primarily to Arabic students as a way of “preserving their culture” or some other similar crap filled reason.
I agree with you in principal. However, I strongly agree with post #5 “First teach them to speak ENGLISH!”
Absolutely. Right now, the percentage of non-Arabs in this country who speak Arabic is practically zero. Two guys on a crowded bus in Chicago could be loudly discussing, in Arabic, their immediate plans to blow up that bus right after they get off at the next stop, and no one else on the bus would get off with them, other than those who were already planning to. It’s as if they have a cloak of invisibility. They know English, we don’t know Arabic—a very dangerous formula.
The new federal grant, on top of $1.6 million in state and federal funds the schools already have gotten, will fund the expansion to three additional high schools that have yet to be identified.
Ala Achbar!.....
I agree that we need students who can communicate well in English. But you shouldn’t be so hasty in concluding that the students who sign up for these classes are not proficient English speakers and writers. Most of the students will take these classes to satisfy their foreign language requirement for graduation. The object is to find those students who excel at particular languages and to encourage them to pursue fluency. This fed program is at least one program that is worth the expense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.