Ebonics is not the answer
Over the pass few months, a controversial subject regarding the education of African American students in the Oakland School District has made its way to the top of discussions across America. "Ebonics" or African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or Vernacular Black English (VBE) has been erroneously called "slang," "broken English," instead the full-fledged dialect that it is. Much heated debate, public and private, has brought an opinion from almost everyone who has heard of the subject. Without there being only one primary reason, evidence shows there are several important reasons such as lowering the English standards, wasting the taxpayers dollars and finally lowering the students' self-esteem and confidence are equally significant in the fight against Ebonics.Oakland Unified School District strongly disagrees with the linguists and the Board of Education opinion of lowering student's academic standards and proposes its ambitious professional development goal: ensuring that teachers understand the structural details of AAVE so that they can draw on Black students' linguistic proficiency. Attitudes toward the vernacular dialect may well have to be overhauled, and some fairly extensive
"It's black people shooting themselves in the foot. So what is? The answer may lie deeper than slang or nonconjugated verbs. Twenty-six years ago, Brooklyn College offered a course, which taught "Black English" as the alleged native language of African-Americans. " An education that promotes success and esteem, not one that suggests lower standards. For example, different varieties of Chinese are popularly regarded as "dialects," though their speakers cannot understand each other, but speakers of Swedish and Norwegian, which are regarded as separate "languages," generally understand each other. "Black English is a dialect -- it is not a separate language," said John McWhorter, a professor of linguistics and African-American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Jesse Jackson: "Ebonics is a disgrace to our children. can achieve anything anyone else can. "What our children need, and other disadvantaged American children as well -- Indian, Spanish-speaking, Asian, Appalachian and immigrant Caucasian -- is training in basic English which today is nearly an international language as any in the world. According to the California State Department of Education, over 300 schools statewide already participate in a little-known government program established by the State Board of Education in 1981--the "Standard English Program for Speakers of Black Language. The primary responsibility of the educational system is to qualitatively educate students and prepare them for career success and equal participation in California's communities to give them a chance to succeed.
Common topics in this essay:
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