85 languages spoken in Buffalo schools as ‘New Americans’ enter classrooms – IOTW Report

85 languages spoken in Buffalo schools as ‘New Americans’ enter classrooms

Wednesday, 30 November 2016, 6:30 BFH Uncategorized 15

This can’t be good for anybody.

Buffalo News- The City of Buffalo has taken in thousands of immigrants and refugees in recent years, and it’s reflected in many of its schools. More than 85 different languages are spoken throughout the district, but that number can change by the day.

English language learners now make up 15 percent of the district’s enrollment, and as a whole, they are among the lowest-performing, state figures show. They also are the fastest-growing segment.

All of which constitutes challenges for the new arrivals, as well as for the district expected to teach them.

But last year, Buffalo – forced by necessity and new mandates – began making some long overdue changes at central registration intended to address its large customer base of students from foreign lands.

Chief among them is a new team of multilingual staffers who can speak to the students in their own language – and thus are able to sign them up for school, test their English, detail their prior education, and discuss with parents what to expect in the classroom.

The hope is to better serve this rising population of “New Americans” and better assess them so their teachers know their true academic potential. More

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HT/ Rob e.

15 Comments on 85 languages spoken in Buffalo schools as ‘New Americans’ enter classrooms

  5. Blame the stupid idiots infesting the Supreme Court! They declared it a constitutional edict that the taxpayers fund an expensive education for any and every illegal invader that stumbles, swims, rafts, crawls, lies, cheats and steals to get here! Who knew that foreigners had more constitutional rights than American Citizens. Oh, but then, we do have the right/obligation to pay for them with our blood sweat and tears!

  8. The best system for this is the one I went through myself when my father got orders for a three year tour in Buenos Aires when I was ten years old. I went to a school that focused primarily on the children of diplomats and business people who came from non-Spanish speaking countries. Their solution was to put all us newbies in a intensive “Special Spanish” class for six months and then dump us all in regular classes. Argentine law required that even foreign-run schools had to conduct half the school day according to their national curriculum in Spanish. After that six months, just about all of us could keep our heads above water, so to speak, in class, no matter what our first languages were.

    It seems to me that this sort of system would work yugely better and trying to teach all the subjects in all the languages.

  11. What do rational countries do about educating students whose first language is different? My wild guess would be that they are taught in the common language, and are expected to learn it.

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