Teaching English

Lettter to the Editor of The Chicago Tribune

If your child is running a fever, the solution is not to redraw the lines on your thermometer. Yet that’s essentially what Illinois officials are doing by lowering scores on the English learner reading test (“Reading test may get easier to pass; Scoring system called unfair to immigrants,” Metro, June 14).

The fact is immigrants in Chicago Public Schools have a problem.

They aren’t learning English.

Lowering the passing grade simply hides this problem from the public’s sight–ensuring that school officials won’t be held accountable and will have fewer incentives than before to improve English learning programs.

Wouldn’t it make far more sense to stop lowering standards and simply teach kids English properly?

Chicago’s bilingual education regime seems more concerned with teaching Mexican history in Spanish than giving children the English language skills they’ll need to succeed in this country.