Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Why Should I Press 1
A couple weeks ago I noted that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was laying the smackdown on the states that fell short of federal standards for public school performance (NYTimes link requires registration). Spellings’ two big headaches were Maine and Nebraska. Among the seven other states causing a problem, is New York which is now starting to do what is needed to comply. At stake, is more than a million dollars a year in federal aid. So what are they doing? Let’s take a look…
State education officials said that any student with at least one year of U.S. schooling will have to take the regular English Language Arts exam. Until now, students with less than three years of U.S. schooling could take a different test for English as a second language.
The change affects about 90,000 children in grades three through eight who speak limited English. The next test is in January.
Mmmm, hmmm. And so, as I was pointing out two weeks ago, the No Child Left Behind Act in particular, and the notion of standardized testing in general, is presented to us as the cause of the problem as these states end up behind the woodshed. And yet, the standard is just that: a standard. It’s the falling-short of the standard that is the problem — were the standard unreasonable, we’d have 51 states in trouble, not nine. And as we see from this article, at least in New York, an inadequate command of the our country’s indigenous language is a significant issue in this shortfall.
Good to know, for the next time I see squabbling about the NCLB. The real issue is English. English versus…Tower-Of-Babel linguistic anarchy.
Why is there any controversy about this, and by that I mean, at all? Is anyone ready to step forward and say the ninety-thousand New York kids would be better off remaining untested, sent out into the world with diploma in hand, with their sub-par command of the English language hung around the neck like a dead albatross?
They would succeed, being, in the classic vernacular, “left behind”?
This country is the “downtown financial center” of the world. We have work to do; we need to talk to each other. Is it too much to ask that we have one official language? By all means walk around in whatever color of skin God gave you, and speak whatever you want at home. But we speak English here.
To those who say that’s racist — what color is English?
Let’s give it up for the English language, shall we. If we were to wake up tomorrow morning with one language magically expunged from the face of the globe, so that thousands to millions to billions of transactions were no longer possible due to this sudden magical excision, the loss of the English language would deal a more devastating blow to civilization than the same thing done to any other single language you could imagine. No more pencils, books, teachers’ dirty looks, ordering cheesesteak sandwiches, paying of bills, transferring of funds, yammering at your mamma to bring gruel to your bedroom door, no more American Idol. No more nothin’. Just flicking each other off on the freeway. And when you’re out of gas, you’d better learn to flick off other people when you’re walking, because it’ll be tough fill anything back up again.
Yeah, the gas station owner speaks Hindu or Swahili or something. Whatever. Sooner or later, he’ll be dry and he’ll have to order a delivery.
English is our lifeblood. When it’s strong, everybody’s strong, regardless of their mother tongue. Everybody, on all sides of this phony issue, knows it to be true. Everybody who gives it a few seconds’ thought knows it. Thank you New York, 49 states to go.
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