Reply to Entering Oyster as Spanish-dominant -- Spanish proficiency test?

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Reply to "Entering Oyster as Spanish-dominant -- Spanish proficiency test?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]If the school states you must be Latino in ethnicity or culture they would be shut down quickly. There are numerous two-way programs across the U.S. The criteria is native fluency, not an acceptable race or culture. I think people are well-meaning wanting to Latinos a leg up, but that is the essence of discrimination. [/quote]

The official language from the lottery application was posted on the first page of this thread. It does not say anything about ethnicity. Rather than continuing this argument which led to me deleting multiple pages of posts last night, please let it go.

If I understand this dispute to which I have become an unwilling observer, there are basically two viewpoints:

1) The dominant language of a child is most often the language of the child's parents and the first language the child learns. In most cases, such children are from Latino families;

2) As a result some kids being bilingual from a very early age, "dominance" of a language is less important than "fluency" because the the child may be fluent in more than one language with neither being dominate. There are several methods of achieving fluency.

Those who have the first viewpoint are not buying the argument made by those with the second viewpoint. That dispute probably can't be resolved without input from the school. But, I would stress that neither of the viewpoints is based on race or ethnicity. While the first viewpoint suggests a strong correlation of ethnicity and language dominance, such correlation is not stated as a requirement.

Assuming I understand correctly, there is no need to further debate the racial and ethnicity issues, but rather get clarification from the school.
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Thank you. Great summary.

To further illustrate why all this has little to do with race or ethnicity:

- the most clearly Spanish dominant kid in my kid's class is a French girl with 2 French parents. How come? Because they lived in Spain for several years right before coming over, and she speaks no English (she obviously speaks French)

- a good number of Latino kids speak/ pronounce Spanish not much better than the average Anglo. For better or worse, people in this country tend to assimilate by forgetting their ancestors' language, and bilingual education has been ignored if not outlawed in many states for decades...which is one more reason why we need schools like Oyster, and all the immersion public and charter schools
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