Georgia School District's Hiring of Translators 'Misguided,' Says Group

CNSNews.com ^ | 6/05/03 | David Fein

[kattracks]

(CNSNews.com) - The recent decision by a school district in Georgia to hire translators for students who speak Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese and their parents is under attack by a group devoted to preserving the role of the English language in the United States.

Gwinnett County School Board spokeswoman Sloan Roach defended the board's hiring of the three translators as necessary "to meet the growing needs of a diverse community [and] to enhance communication with limited-English proficient parents."

The interpreters, Roach emphasized, "are not being used for instruction, but rather for communicating with parents about their children's schooling and to help them become more involved with their learning."

However, Jim Lubinskas, spokesperson for U.S. English, Inc., said the county's plan is "shortsighted" and "misguided" because it caters to the immigrants' native languages and will end up being counterproductive by removing the incentive for the students to learn English.

Roach countered these claims by pointing to the county's English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program, which she said would feature 350 teachers providing English instruction to immigrant students in the next school year.

She also rejected the notion that the school board was catering to the students' native languages.

"Our instructional program, as far as working with students, is one that clearly focuses on academic achievement in and through English," Roach said.

"The selected languages are those with the highest concentration in Gwinnett County - Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese. The decision to focus on these three languages was simply a matter of pragmatics. Those three languages will allow us to reach approximately 70 percent of the language minority parents," Roach added.

While Vietnamese students number nearly 1,600 in Gwinnett County, enough to merit a translator, Lubinskas wondered if the more than 800 Chinese-speaking students in the county would also eventually need the same kind of assistance. "Where do you draw the line?" he asked.

Lubinskas' group prefers other solutions to solving the language gaps.

"We're for parents learning English also, and we think that the $138,000 could have been better spent providing English classes."

In a statement published on the U.S. English, Inc., website, the group's chairman, Mauro E. Mujica, wrote: "Encouraging immigrants to learn English is not about bigotry or exclusion. On the contrary, teaching newcomers English is one of the strongest acts of inclusion to our society our government can provide. The whole notion of a melting pot culture is threatened if immigrants aren't encouraged to adopt the common language of this country."

As for the language gap in the United States, Lubinskas warned: "In general, it's getting worse."

Citing U.S. Census figures for 2000, Lubinskas said there are 21.3 million Americans who speak English less than very well, meaning they either don't speak English at all or they don't speak it well enough to get by in society. That represents a 52 percent increase compared with the 1990 census, Lubinskas said.

"I'm sure we don't want to be a nation where over 10 percent of the population does not adequately speak English. It will lead to ethnic enclaves, linguistic enclaves, and it's certainly not good for the immigrants themselves," Lubinskas said.

U.S. English, Inc., was founded in 1983 by the late Sen. S.I. Hayakawa of California and now claims more than 1.7 million members nationwide.

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[TheCrusader]

""We're for parents learning English also, and we think that the $138,000 could have been better spent providing English classes."

This is the answer to the language problems that the glorification of "diversity" has created in the U.S. Spend all this money earmarked for foolish liberal programs on teaching the immigrants the English language. The idea of hiring translators is just ludicrous. It's the same old liberal mentality of giving the hungry fish to eat every day instead of just teaching them how to fish.

[Salman]

¿Cual es su problema?

You've heard of Peggy-Sue?

This is Qually-Sue Problema! Very Georgia. What's your problem?