There are, of course those, who would argue that it is far simpler to provide special education in a setting where all/most of the students have special needs.

One might also ask how it is that a school has such a concentration of students with disabilities–one might want to involve the CDC in diagnosing an epidemic of whatever it is that is causing this situation.

I never said that the US had nothing to learn from other countries. I pointed out that Finland is dealing with a very different situation than the US. It’s easy to have special education for 3 kids at a 100 kid school. It’s hard to have special education for 35 kids at a 100 kid school, or, as is the case in the US, 2-300 kids at a 500 kid school.

Margo doesn’t seeom to find that relevant, which is another way of saying “one size fits all”.

It devotes a chapter to the Finnish experience with education for its immigrant population, and a discussion of the language of instruction for those students. Singapore also has language policy worth examining, as their population consists of so many language groups.

You argued that teaching in 50 “mother tongues” was evidence of diversity. It’s not unless a significant number of people are being taught in a “mother tongue” that isn’t the country’s dominant language. For all we know, it’s one student for each of the 49 not-Finnish languages.

I suspect that the vast majority of students being taught in not-Finnish languages are being taught in other Scandanavian languages.

Finland is less diverse than Minnesota.

The fact remains that Finland is teaching a far less diverse population than Fresno.

Finland is less diverse than the least diverse US state. As a result, they can do things that we can’t do.

However, I will say that the Finish Rock Band, the Leningrad Cowboys, had one of the best closing numbers ever at one of their Moscow shows.

They played “Sweet Home Alabama”, backed by the Red Army Band, the Russian equivalent of the USMC Band.

No.

We *used* to do this in California (weren’t supposed to, but it was common), but this has *mostly* gone away. The problem in California, and the thing that motivated getting rid of this, was that the kids were *NOT* learning English. This is fine if one wants inexpensive landscapers, but not so good if one wants the kids to be able to get reasonable jobs.

-Mark R.

Yes, this is what we have. I just want to understand what would constitute ‘mother tongue’ instruction for you. Would only educating the Spanish speakers in Spanish for K-12 count? Or do we have to do everyone? Or the top-10 groups? Or what? Top-50 in this country could well include Hmong and Russian …

-Mark Roulo