ELL funding won’t get to heart of problem

To the editor:

Regarding the article on English Language Learning (“Time to deliver,” Tuesday Review-Journal) mentions that 96 percent of the first-year elementary school children at Cambeiro Elementary School speak very little or no English. The $50 million allocated for ELL programs in Nevada isn’t going to have much impact on these kids learning English. The reason: Because the parents, grandparent and neighbors all speak Spanish when they are talking to each other. The television shows they watch are on Spanish-speaking channels, and the radio stations they listen to are also Spanish broadcasts.

They are completely immersed in their own language, so the time spent teaching them English in school is really wasted.

A prime example: Our dryer went out when my wife was doing the laundry. We went to a laundromat to use the dryer. While there, a woman probably in her 40s came in with a young woman, perhaps 25, with two kids who appeared to be perhaps 6 and 3. A nice looking family. They all were speaking Spanish. Another kid came up to play with the little kids and spoke to them in English. The two Spanish-speaking children both just looked at him and walked back to their relatives — presumably their mother and grandmother — and talked to them in Spanish. They couldn’t understand the other kid, and therein lies the problem.

Until these families understand that they have to speak English at home and in their social settings, nothing will change. Government and business have added to this problem. Call any business or government office, and the first message you get is: “Press one for English and two for Spanish.” Government entities publish everything in English and Spanish. How do you expect people to learn English if we continue to coddle them in this fashion?

My grandparents learned English when they came to America. They wouldn’t allow Spanish or Italian to be spoken in the house, because they wanted my parents to be English-speaking Americans, so that they could be successful. I was disappointed when I saw the governor authorize this $50 million for the ELL program, because it is not going to work. We will have the proof in two years, and the school district and taxpayers will be $50 million poorer.

BARRY PEREA

LAS VEGAS