UPDATED:
There have been a slew of letters to the Boston Globe regarding the Readiness Project. We'll see about getting some links up to those over the next day or so.
The O Jornal (not a mistype; it's not an English word) points out one hole to the report: English Language Learners.
State Representative Antonio F.D. Cabral (D-New Bedford) was not surprised by the lack of vision; however, he was disappointed.
"We cannot have a 10-year readiness project without including those students statewide that have suffered in terms of transition to English because of the present law," said Cabral. "Call it full immersion, bilingual, those students must be part of the debate. When legislation is submitted, certainly that issue will have to be discussed."
You'll remember that we have many of them in Worcester. As those children require resources (there was some discussion at last week's School Committee meeting regarding translators, for example), this is a topic that warrants attention. The percentage statewide of students who speak English as a second language is 15%. According to the DOE foundation calculations, in Worcester, 28% of Pre-K students are English language learners and 18.6% of K-12. That's a lot of kids. That matters to Worcester.
(thanks, Colleen, for finding the Worcester numbers!)
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