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Cutting programs that benefit our brightest students is like shooting ourselves in the foot.  Cutting physical education when our children are obese makes not sense whatsoever.  At the same time our schools are faced with the need of serving ever more children who need special assistance with language barriers.  So here is my idea for a solution.

At our universities incoming international students are required a certain level of language proficiency before being mainstreamed into regular classes.  This decreases the disruption to the students who know the language the class is being taught in while decreasing the frustration and failure rate of the international student.  Why not use the same format for our K-12 schools where we provide ELS instructors for elementary (maybe one for two or three schools) middle and high school aged incoming kids until they can understand, communicate, read and write well enough to function in the regular classroom.  This would ease the burden on already over filled classrooms and teachers who already have a very full plate working with our children trying to meet the standards demanded for proficiency and No Child Left Behind.

Polli Butzner, Albany

posted 4 years ago
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