A Stitch in Haste

Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English; and then I would let the clever learn Latin as an honour and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.
--Winston Churchill

The latest incarnation of public school child abuse:

Incorporating Ebonics into a new school policy that targets black students, the lowest-achieving group in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, may provide students a more well-rounded curriculum, said a local sociologist.
...
"Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe," Texeira said. "For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language.

This comes in the wake of Oakland's decision back in 1996 to support the use of Ebonics in the classroom.

I'm not a linguist, and I refuse to wade into the muck of whether Ebonics is a "language" or a "dialect" or both or neither. Here's the easy part — it's not "foreign," hence it cannot legitimately be considered a "foreign language."

When a child shows up in school with head lice, we don't create a special "head lice classroom" for them. We treat the condition and move on.

We don't quibble about which among the immigrant German, Austrian or Swiss children in an American classroom speaks "proper" German or which Spanish dialect — Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican or European — is more "proper" in our schools. We (hopefully) simply teach them Standard Written English and move on.

Ebonics may certainly have some cultural validity, comparable to Hebrew or Yiddish for secular Jews. Knowledge of Ebonics as a supplement to Standard Written English is a personal and family decision that may be rational in some situations and some locations. But Ebonics as an alternative to Standard Written English is not rational and not an appropriate option in our public schools any more than instruction in Spanish or any language (except insofar as to catalyze the learning of Standard Written English).

Otherwise, Ebonics is merely linguistic head lice.

Other thoughts at Cranky Bastard, Wood Chips and Text Musings, Number 2 Pencil and Rogue Son.