Here’s what the San Bernardino school board has to say:

On July 18, The Sun newspaper included comments from Mary Texeira, a sociologist who is not affiliated with the San Bernardino City Unified School District. The views she expressed in the article titled  Ebonics suggested for district are completely separate from and
unrelated to the work of the school district.

The San Bernardino City Unified School District is not incorporating Ebonics into our instructional curriculum, nor has the School Board ever considered it. The District remains committed to providing the best education possible to all students. The Targeted Instructional Improvement Board Policy #6154a-c (see attached) is a new and bold approach designed to accomplish this goal. The policy makes no references to Ebonics, nor does it imply that Ebonics
will be utilized in the instructional program.

O’Reilly.

Michele Malkin, claiming that Ebonics is being treated as a “civil right” by the San Bernardino school board.

One of the clowns on the Corner who can’t distinguish between the remedial education pilot program that already exists and a suggestion to add another piece to it.

http://www.cal.org/ebonics/

What’s the first site on the list?

http://www.joel.net/EBONICS/translator.asp

An article in Monday’s editions quoted a local sociologist saying that Ebonics should be incorporated into a new San Bernardino City Unified School District policy for black students. Mary Texeira, a Cal State San Bernardino professor, is not affiliated with the San Bernardino district. However, Texeira does serve on a diversity committee that provides the district with information on the community. The new San Bernardino district policy does not include Ebonics.

“Teaching Ebonics, which is nothing more than urban slang, will not provide a means for an individual to acquire a job,” notes Project 21 member Michael King. “It will not help someone maintain a living. It will not provide an individual with the skills necessary to compete in an academic setting, let alone a professional setting. It does absolutely nothing positive for those to whom it is taught. (QIB: bold added. See? The shouters are already claiming there’s a PLAN to TEACH Ebonics.) I don’t see professors trying to justify hacker geek-speak or online shorthand as their own separate language!”

Prediction: O’Reilly within 2 weeks.

I don’t see any indication in the San Bernardino article (or anywhere else for that matter) that anyone wants to deny kids a fluency in standard English. There seems to be an assumption that children who use AAVE could speak, write, and understand standard English if they’d just stop being so lazy and try harder. Apparently, that strategy isn’t yielding results as reliably as some might pretend.

I shake my head at comments like these.

We ‘coddle’ kids all the time—and we should. We ‘coddle’ kids when they’re dyslexic or have speech impediments. We ‘coddle’ them when they have sight and/or hearing problems. We ‘coddle’them when they’re victims of abuse.

Yet it seems it’s wrong to ‘coddle’ them when the kids are victims of socio-economics and dysfunctional families.

I’d suggest very few kids would thrive in the Darwinist environment you seem to hold such great faith in.

Or is trumpeting one’s opposition to anything labelled “Ebonics” a badge of “rationality” so precious that one jumps at it without thought. All the while comforted by the knowledge that the issue is one upon which the press and the right will boldly mislead the public?

I’d like to direct everyone’s attention to this passage:

“In the case at hand, the mainstream view was that Ebonics itself was street slang, and that Oakland teachers were going to teach in it, or allow students to talk or write in it instead of in English. It was in response to THIS misrepresentation of Ebonics and the Oakland resolutions that editorials, Op-Ed pieces, letters to the editor, cartoons, and agitated calls to radio talk shows were directed, and attempts to get alternative viewpoints aired were often very difficult, especially in the most prestigious media.”

Kind of like when Bill Cosby comments on the state of the African-American, naturally wingnut racists latch on to it.

Why not invest money and time to teach the kids proper English instead of condoning bad grammar.

I wish that someone had taught the writer who gave us the original San Bernardino article something about English. It’s a terrible article.

First, the Ebonics suggestion is attributed to a sociology professor. Does the professor have anything to do with the remedial studies program in the San Bernardino school system? If you can find an answer in the article, please let me know.

Second, the professor suggests “incorporating” Ebonics into the remedial learning program. What does that mean? Once again, holler if you find an answer in the article.

Third, the article focuses on the professors suggestion of adding a new element to an existing pilot program. What’s taught in the pilot program? Has it been successful? By what measure? If you can figure it out, then maybe the problem is mine, not the writer’s.

The article is a shambles. It’s entirely possible that the San Bernardino program is a good one. It might be horrible. The writer of the article doesn’t give us any way to tell. It’s nearly impossible to learn anything meaningful from her account. But that won’t stop the shouters on the right from going nuts about “teaching Ebonics.”

My prediction: this will turn up on O’Reilly within the next couple of weeks.

What will you do, just say, “Hey! What the hell, put that comma wherever you want! It’s all good! Yeah, aksing someone is just fine!”

That’s irresponsible and insulting to children.

I wouldn’t be opposed to somewhere trying a pilot program where kids with non-standard English, of any sort, could take academic classes, math, science, etc. where they were not downgraded for their grammar and spoken style. And English class was taught in a non-judgemental way.

But that would make too much sense, wouldn’t it?

Remember, always follow the money.

If you can, please tell us your understanding of what, in fact, this proposal of “incorporating Ebonics” in San Bernardino consists?

Anyone who read on learned this:

“Len Cooper, who is coordinating the pilot program at the two city schools, said San Bernardino district officials do not plan to incorporate Ebonics into the program.

“Because Ebonics can have a negative stigma, we’re not focusing on that,’ Cooper said. “We are affirming and recognizing Ebonics through supplemental reading books (for students).’

Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, teachers will receive training on black culture and customs. District curriculum will now include information on the historical, cultural and social impact of blacks in society. Although the program is aimed at black students, other students can choose to participate.”

So the very same negative stigma that everyone has been going on and on about is exactly why ebonics is NOT a central part of what is only a limited pilot program. What is the central part of the program? Including more information about black history and culture in reading materials and instruction to keep black kids more engaged. Anyone have a problem with that?

Like Quaker says, mention ebonics and people go nuts. But why? Ebonics may not be a language but it isn’t a simplistic elevation of slang to Shakespeare. Linguists have identified a set of unique grammatical rules at work in African American Vernacular English, aka ebonics. The only time I have ever heard of ebonics being “taught” in the classroom is to use student’s understanding of those grammatical rules to teach them the grammatical rules of “proper” english.

I took a lot of French to get my graduate degree. The classes were immersive but when it came down to it the teachers always used my understanding of English usage to illustrate how French is similar or different. Same principle as far as I’m concerned. And guess what? This use of ebonics seems to work: http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/EbonicsInMyBackyard.html

And the idea that such an application of ebonics will keep people from getting jobs is equally overblown. We all use a variety of communication styles and formations depending on the settings were in. I may use all manner of slang and improper grammar at a bar-b-cue with my friends and family but that doesn’t mean I’ll never get a job. No. Why? Because I understand the difference between a bar-b-cue and a job interview.

Acknowledging the grammatical rules at work in ebonics to help a kid learn how to speak and read proper english does not erase that distinction. Any more than it would if a school district used comic books (not exactly a bastion of the King’s English) to get and keep kids of any race interested in reading long enough to move them on to Dickens or whoever. For that matter, going back to Shakespeare, I don’t use rhyming couplets on job interviews either.

Go to a foreign country sometime; it’s generally pretty easy to pick up the gist of their primetime shows without understanding more than a handful of words.

QinaB is correct; I have a distinct suspicion what is being proposed isn’t a substitute for learning English. Instead, it’s a tool–or stepping stone–for involving the kid in the rest of the curriculum.