NUTSO CALIFORNIA

(sigh)

OMG!

This morning I heard that some of the Nutso People in the State of California have challenged the state's exit exam for graduation from high school on the grounds that it is discriminatory against those who don't speak English well. This is California's weekly ebullition.

Excuse me, please.

Contrary to what some of you think, I am not insensitive to cultural differences. However, I believe that the first and most basic requirement for graduation from high school in this country should be the ability to speak, write, read and understand ENGLISH! It's important that we speak the native language of this country as well as being able to solve for x or memorize a passage from Macbeth. It seems we are so quick to blame cultural or social issues for the problems that are prevalent in our schools that we don't see the forest for the trees. Emphasis should be on teaching English at the highest level to ALL of our students and to working with those with linguistic differences to bring them to that level at the youngest possible age. There's also so much "slanguage" (not to mention Spanglish, Ebonics, etc.) that at times it doesn't even resemble English.

Public schools in this country have dropped the educational ball because we have turned schools into babysitters. Classes are too large, teachers are burned out, schoolboards are too cowardly to take a bold stand against the whiners and special interest groups that press their agendas to the masses. Kids wear provocative clothing to school, form Aryan Nation groups, plot to wipe out teachers and students who piss them off, smoke in the bathrooms, make out in the halls. It sickens me.

I attended a holiday (God forbid, we should call it "Christmas" any more) concert at my grandson's middle school two years ago, and as I approached the area outside the auditorium I saw a middle school girl straddling a middle school boy atop a concrete planter. Parents and pre-schoolers were everywhere, walking right past these two in pre-conjugal embrace. Not one of them paid any attention, let alone said anything to them. I was astounded. I casually stopped, looked at the girl, and kindly said, "Sweetheart, why don't you get off of him? This isn't the place for this." She belligerently looked at me and squawked, "Who the hell are YOU, bitch?" To which I replied, "I'm your worst nighmare. Now move on or I'll find someone who will MAKE you leave." She did.

I guess my point is that I'm not surprised any more at what California (or Oregon) decide to do with their picayune public school issues because it's everywhere any more. But I DO think they're looking at the wrong side of the coin.......AGAIN. Why don't we teach English the way it should be taught, require fluency and THEN worry about exit exams? Aren't students who don't speak English all that well still in our public school classes -- the very classes from which the exit exams are derived? Aren't they taking tests in those classes right along? If so, why then should an EXIT EXAM present any more of a challenge than the day-to-day classroom work? Why isn't the complaint about basic educational deficiencies rather than just the exit exam? It's because we view these things from great remove and can't focus on the core. Again, it's the forest for the trees analogy.

California needs a serious intellectual adjustment to get its house in order.

(sigh)

P. S. Jill, don't slay me here.