I think this is more sinister than just teaching math in Spanish. They're not going to teach math at all, just cultural slop.

By the way, ESL classes teach English to non-native speakers. You're thinking of bilingual classes. And I don't think Spanish-speaking students resist learning English. They're eager to learn the majority language, and most speak it well enough. Their problem is they may never learn to read and write adequately in English.

D'oh, I meant bilingual but put ESL. Thanks Joanne. I've changed that now. Likewise, I think you make a good point that reading and writing in English is the far greater challenge than speaking English for many native-Spanish-speaking students in the U.S.

I find no need to put myself through the aggravation anymore. This growing movement of so-called independant, non-partisan critical thinkers is no more than disguised, right-wing (or left-wing, but right, in this case) programmed group-think. There's a big difference between those in search of dialog, communication, and diverse perspective exchange with the goal of enlightened growth and expansion of ones own perspective, and the same tired, selective, filtered diatribe with like-minds to simply confirm a limited and closed-minded perspective. At one time I thought this site and others like it had the potential of being the former. I visited this, and other blogs less and less because they are proving to be the latter. Doesn't matter whether it's right or left, Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative, the same sound bites, cliches and programmed thinking prevail.

I also have lost the willingness to exchange dialog with primarily whites who insist on referring to issues of diversity as marginalized irritants, or "cultural slop" as it was so intelligently stated. Funny how a people who, over a 500 year period, commited every crime imaginable (including large-scale use of WMD on civilians), developed every institution in America for their blatantly & exclusive use, and did so under the name of God, can continually be so blind and ignorant regarding issues of culture. Not only that, but having no possibility of experiencing the sanctioned type of individual and systemic cultural biases and ignorance that people of color do, most of you are the most opinionated. When you hear the term "white privilege" (which many of you probably haven't and would likely become violently outraged by the concept) that is what it is, in part. A people who force their opinion or "truth" as universal truth, or the norm, even though they may be the least experienced in the subject matter. And you have the nerve to refer to the media as liberal (not that is would be any better), even though one so-called talk show after another feeds into this mass brainwashing.

I would try to point out examples to you, but I've done so in the past and it continues to be a waste of time. Probably better for my aggravation level to delete this site from memory. But, damn! Spanish speaking people deal with you everyday. They, like most people of color in America are forced to understand you far more than you'll ever come close to being capable of understanding their multiple complexities. I am 47 years old. After 500 years of blatantly, violently, religiously & systemically slanting every American institution to benefit you at the expense of everyone else, it was only in my lifetime that these SANCTIONED forms of bias came to an end. Yet, whenever black, brown, red or yellow people bring up the issue of bias, I can almost hear your eyes rolling in their sockets as you have to tolerate more of this "cultural slop."

As a young man, the ignorant statements espoused by the Jimmy the Greeks, George Wallace's, Bill Parcells, Trent Lotts and countless others who would make ignorant statements, then attribute the outrage to over-sensitivity and political correctness, use to anger me. Now, I feel sorry for a people who have so little understanding of their history, the history of others, and can afford to have so little knowledge of people of the world around them. I actually take pitty on such individuals, despite their privilege, arrogance and distorted sense of importance. I must navigate, manipulate, predict behaviors and recognize values and beliefs in whites on a daily basis in order to excell in America. Many of you, on the other hand, only think about issues of diversity when you are irritated by requests for "diversity" like this story indicates.

As Cosby spoke of, it is time for blacks to take responsibility for our own conditions. I have been a proponent of this belief for years. Last time I checked this blog it was chock-full of opinions and agreement, and sighs of "it's about time" throghought. Part of white privilege is being able to sit in judgement of others and tell them what they need to do, while simultaniously avoiding ones own efforts of taking responsibility, crying the cry of "victim" around request for diversity, affirmative action (which I am opposed to for reasons you aren't capable of understanding, although whites have had the most dominant form of affirmative action for 500 years - have the courage to think honestly about it). Practice what you preach, and take some of your own responsibility. Believe it or not, you are far more neglegent in this area than blacks or anyone else. Your privilege simply allows you to be blind, or rather, self-deceiving, in this area.

"Historically the dominant culture of the country has been western European and English. Curriculum materials reflect (those) cultural patterns, which isn't good or bad, it just means that kids from those kinds of backgrounds tend to have more advantages because the content and the way it is delivered matches the way their culture represents the world and what they learn at home."

And that's why students of Asian descent, often immigrants themselves, outscore on average students of European descent, very few of them immigrants, on "culturally biased" tests such as the SAT?

Yet another fact that foils Marx's stereotypical assumption: the primary language for most Hispanics in the United States is actually... English, not Spanish!

Although I often side with Joanne Jacobs' take on educational matters, I agree with Matt on this one. The general way in which we teach math in my opinion is in need of reform.

If anything, I think we just fear that the Spanish-speaking population might become dare I say stronger in math than the average Anglo? Could be. Then again maybe not. Still, sometimes I think our conservative ticklers unnecessarily put us in hypersensitive defense mode.

Even as a conservative, I'm not on the whole "anti-bilingual education" bandwagon. I think it's silly, especially when compared to many other countries, our education standards are below excellence; even in private schools. I know high school sophomores in third-world countries who could think half our Harvard grads under the table.

We graduate most American students with vague traces of conversational Spanish under their belt and that's about it. Sorry to say, that's leaving them ill-equipped to handle the direction in which our world is going.

Americans are cocky in our attitude about education. It's as though we think we've "arrived" at the sum of all eternal widsom in teaching. Sorry, far the heck from it.

Ambra, for kids in Spanish-speaking families whose parents want them to learn English, bilingual classes are not as effective as English immersion. It's be great if everybody was fluent in both languages; since everybody isn't, a person's options are limited if his fluency in English is. Education should be all about options.

A few years ago there was an article in the local paper about a kid who took the ACT and SAT in his junior year, just to see how they were before he took them for real, and he made perfect scores on both. That almost never happens. I know the kid's dad; he's a civil engineer in the company I used to work for. The family immigrated here from Mexico when this kid was two years old, and they speak Spanish in the home. So much for Hispanic culture holding kids back.