Measure 58: English Instruction

This is a good measure! California has done exactly this same thing and has had great success with it. It is proven to work no matter what this paper says.

Of course the PTA and the teachers union want you to beleive that this is a bad idea because they lose funds when they can't claim ESL kids to the federal government.

This is a proven method that is being adopted in other states.

Although I'm not a fan of Bill Sizemore, I like the idea of this measure. I am a resident of France, married to a non-English speaking Frenchman and until my arrival two years ago, I didn't speak a word of French. In order to obtain my French residency, I had to be fluent in French. Being immersed in the language 24-hours a day (as non-English speaking residents of the US are), I was fluent in about six months.

There is the same requirement in France for would-be residents of all ethnic backgrounds. Saying a "one size fits all" approach to teaching immigrants a language is "dangerous" seems a little alarmist.

The French government offers up to 400 hours of free lessons if, at the time of your final interview, you are not at their required fluency levels. At just five hours a week of lessons, that would be about 1.5 years, so the time frame of one to two years does not seem unreasonable.

I'm a liberal through and through, but this may just be a case of false liberalism here.

Israel, too, has a 6-month immersion program, called an Ulpan, for all new-comers. It is embraced and welcomed by those who want to enter into regular civilian life and the very tight job market as soon as possible without being at a disadvantage.

All schools should implement an intensive, limited immersion program whose funding is based on the number of students enrolled and maybe even the success of it's graduates. If these students continue to require more remedial education in other subjects, then they should be integrated along with all other students who have learning difficulties and no longer branded as ESL.

As much as I don't trust Sizemore and his anti-tax approach, it can only help students to shorten their integration into our English-speaking society. And enough already with the conflict-of-interest funding methods that award money-starved school districts for not meeting standards. The point of educating students to meet a standard is so that they are not at a disadvantage when they get out into the real world and have to compete with everyone else. Lets help them help themselves so that they have the same educational and professional opportunities as everyone else. that's true liberalism. The job of the school is to put everyone on as equal a footing as possible when they graduate. Failing ESL programs only perpetuate dependency on the state well into adult life, costing us untold millions and them the unnecessary loss of a better life all because those who fail are at a continual disadvantage as wage earners throughout their adult lives and end up costing the state far more than if we successfully brought them up to standards in the first place. That's tough love and the new face of real liberalism. Let's fully integrate all our citizens and give them real equal opportunity.

Money is always much better spent on the front end truly fixing problems when they arise so that don't continue to fester and require expensive bandaids in the way of all kinds of interventionist programs until the wound is so festered no amount of funding can fix it.

Teach them English in a real hurry

My mother came to this country not knowing a word of English, as did my grandfather. They learned by mixing with others on daily basis, not by some taxing boondoggling, inflation of the educational system.