Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, January 30, 2006
The right time to teach language
I had a couple other thoughts Bob Taft’s comments to DDN reporters and editors from Friday.
The first had to do with foreign language study. If you’ve read this blog regularly you know I am a proponent of foreign language study and Taft proposed in his state-of-the-state address that high schools require two years of foreign language study beginning in 2011.
Here was my question to Taft. If foreign language is such an important skill for our kids to have and the research strongly suggests the best time to learn language is in the early years when children are learning their native languages, how come I can’t find an elementary school language program for my children, even though I live in one of Dayton’s best regarded school districts (Kettering)?”
I believe the governor’s exact words were: “Yes isn’t that something? It’s a real problem.”
I also asked, if we believe the research, why the state doesn’t require these two years of language instruction in elementary school rather than in high school?
He said he thought it would probably cost too much.
But will this be any cheaper to implement at high school? Principals already hold their breaths after a language teacher retires or quits because finding another good one is no simple task.
Ellen Belcher, the DDN’s editorial page editor, asked if we should consider paying teachers more if they specialists in an area of high need, like foreign language or math and science.
Taft said he thought that was a good idea, but that districts were probably hemmed in by union contracts that won’t let them pay more.
Yes, but what about the state, Mark Fisher asked? Ohio already pays extra to National Board Certified teachers directly from state coffers. Couldn’t they do the same for specialty teachers in short supply? Taft and his top education aide, Susan Bodary, said yes it could, but stopped short of saying they’d propose or push for that idea.
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