Regressive blog Hub Politics offers a revealing post today titled “English Perversion.” The piece, which blames the legislature for the poor English of some schoolchildren, begins: “We can thank the overwhelmingly liberal legislature for the poor fluency amongst the non-native English speaking students, after all, it was the Democrats on Beacon Hill who gave the axe to the voter approve English immersion program.” (Screen shot here). A grammatically correct sentence, of course, would use the past tense of the word “approve.” One might also question the author’s use of the preposition “amongst” in this context, and the awkward use of the clause “after all,” but let’s start with spelling and grammar. With friends like these, do Massachusetts Republicans need enemies?
if you’re going to open a can of worms, try not to be too hypocritical. (Before you begin “protecting” the English language, perhaps you ought learn it.)
<
p>
Hmmm, that modifier, “voter approve”, needs a hyphen as well. It should read: “voter-approved”.
<
p>
(And I know I have a dangling pronoun above; it’s acceptable, I swear!)
The failure to use the past participle “approved” could be forgiven as a typo, as obvious as it is, although the phrase “voter-approved” requires the hyphen, too, for clarity. But the entire sentence is structured incorrectly, as it joins two independent clauses with only a comma (the one after “students”) – known as a comma splice in the biz – where a conjunction or a semi-colon is required. Not common knowledge, it’s true, but if you’re going to rail about literacy, you ought to check your grammar.
I thought it read clunkily. A simple period would suffice as well. Nice writing is often punchier than it is windy.
Anyone hear that Barney Frank endorsed Deval?
<
p>
Or better yet:
<
p>
Any1 here dat Barny Frank ndorsd Duval?
I jist posted that newz!
The biggest problem, the one that jumped out at me when I read that sentence, is that it needs a semicolon after “students”. The way it is now, it feels like a run-on. Awkward.
I love it. 🙂
But is there any truth to Hub’s complaint that immersion requirements are being disregarded?
<
p>
I like the way liberals can approvingly disregard laws and regulations they dislike, as New Bedford mayor’s did by graduating high school seniors without satisfying the MCAS requirement, as if it’s some sort of noble civil disobedience.
<
p>
In this instance, you dodge discussion of English-only by conducting a silly punctuation and spelling lesson. Is it typical to level personal attacks when unable to argue the point? So far, I see no one arguing the point.
<
p>
Perhaps itâs an absolute liberal orthodoxy that bilingual ed is multicultural and good, English-only immersion racist and bad, thus making any debate moot. I canât tell because youâre all busy nitpicking Hubâs grammar and spelling.
<
p>
My polyglot brother learns a new language every 5 years, exclusively through an intensive immersion technique. It’s the same way my grandparents learned English. We got rid of bilingual ed for a reason: because voters believed it didnât work well, didnât teach English, retarded learning in general, and Balkanized non-English-speaking kids. Other states are dropping it too.
<
p>
Is there merit to any of this?
<
p>
Or are you liberals too busy giggling at your own posts? That means you, Kristine 🙁
but we don’t have one for “humorless” yet.
paint with broad strokes and do nothing but attack liberals. Note how BS never addresses the fact that I called the pot out for calling the kettle black.
<
p>
<
p>
You, BS, are absolutely right. If these folks can’t write properly, I sure as hell don’t want them setting our education policy.
<
p>
Dare I even begin to parse your post, BS? Perhaps you should re-immurse yourself in a Fifth-Grade English class.
Was that on purpose, Doc?
<
p>
All this shattered glass around here tells me there was a house once … but whose?
We got rid of bilingual ed for a reason: because voters believed it didnât work well, didnât teach English, retarded learning in general, and Balkanized non-English-speaking kids. Other states are dropping it too.
<
p>
Is there merit to any of this?
<
p>
There was an excellent comment at my site pointing out that yes, immersion does teach language fine most of the time, but the primary motivation for bilingual ed is not for language instruction but so the students will not get behind in other, non-language subjects while they’re learning English. So I’m not buying the “retard learning in general” argument. With due respect to voters, I think that, rather than a weighing of the evidence, the ban was a culture war assertion of hypernationalism – a bristling that any language other than English is being used. I honestly can’t read it any other way, and I think the students from non-English backgrounds suffer for it.
<
p>
I think you have a point about progressives being on the “circumvent the popular will” side of these issues too often, and I’d like to see fellow liberals take the procedural issues more seriously, starting with the New Bedford MCAS fracas.