What Happens When Democrats are Put in Charge of Education?
By Jim Willis on Sep 18, 2009 in Education | Printable Version
What, you can’t read the writing in the image to the right? If you’re a student in Binghamton City Schools you can! Maybe. Let me explain.
From a recent story in the Press & Sun-Bulletin titled Binghamton schools to use grant for increase in Mandarin instruction:
Binghamton students from kindergarten through 12th grade will soon be studying Mandarin Chinese after the district received a federal grant to expand its program.
The Department of Education has awarded the district a $716,000 three-year grant from the Foreign Language Assistance Program that promotes the study of foreign languages critical to national security, said Margaret McGarry, director of fine arts and foreign language for the district.
Using the money, Binghamton will increase the number of Mandarin teachers from one to four, and expand the teaching of the language to students in two middle and one elementary schools, she said. Binghamton began offering Mandarin at the high school in 2007.
I personally have nothing against students learning foreign languages of any kind, but come on! Three-fourths of a MILLION dollars over three years to teach Chinese to kids in a single school district who will never remember it? How many of you took Spanish or French in high school and can’t remember more than a few phrases today? Chinese is infinitely more difficult.
And what, pray tell, will happen in year number four after the grant money is gone? The cry will go forth that we simply can’t leave the precious little chil’ren without their education in Chinese–and so we’ll just have to hike the budget (i.e., raise taxes) to keep it going. Standard Democrat playbook lunacy.
What do you get when Democrats are put in charge of education? Wasted money.
Technorati Tags: Binghamton, New York State, Broome County, foreign language, Mandarin Chinese, education, educational waste