Iowa proposes making english the official state language

[DinoDoc]

Beginning in 1997, high school students in New York may take their Regents exams, except the English test, in a foreign language. After the tests are prepared in English, they will be translated into as many languages as officials deem necessary, including Spanish, Creole and Chinese. (Source: New York Post)

Can anyone confirm this fact I found on the site I linked to earlier? Please prove to me that it's false.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Ramo


Earned income tax credit?

Please specify what you mean.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Please specify what you mean.

Right here

[Ramo]

The difference is prinicpal and the pushing of learning the language. If you do all the work for them they will never learn the language, and there is no way that they would even bother reading the English language version to compare with the Spanish version.

You drastically increase overhead. You'll need instructors for all the people who speak Spanish. It just isn't practical (if it were, I would advocate that).

Please specify what you mean.

Low income people, particularly parents, even people who don't make enough to file an income tax return, get a credit of a few thousand dollars (IIRC, it's positively proportional to income, and then peters off after $12k p.a. or so).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Obviously, learning English is not an essential job skill in the US, else there wouldn't be any non-English speakers with jobs.

Laborer jobs. You want to keep them down?

You want a class of maids, garbage collectors, etc, simply because you want to be accomidating? I'd like to see them get good jobs.

[Dauphin]

Way to go and complicate tax credits. Why don't you guys just shove tax credits straight into pay checks like we do here?

Family tax credits etc.. all get calculated by the employer/payroll system over here

[Ramo]

Laborer jobs. You want to keep them down?

You want a class of maids, garbage collectors, etc, simply because you want to be accomidating? I'd like to see them get good jobs.

Again, I strongly believe that they should learn English, but I'm neither going to force them, nor am I going to screw them over in the short term.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Obviously, learning English is not an essential job skill in the US, else there wouldn't be any non-English speakers with jobs.

Laborer jobs. You want to keep them down?

You want a class of maids, garbage collectors, etc, simply because you want to be accomidating? I'd like to see them get good jobs.

You leave out lawn maintenance, busboys, and dishwashers.
Again, Ramo is not indicative of...anything.

[Ramo]

What are you on about now?

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Ramo

What are you on about now?

I'm on my way out the door.

Later, all.

[DinoDoc]

I finally found an answer to this point

Originally posted by Ramo
Whatever minor benefit you get from streamlining the gov't is undermined by excluding Spanish-speaking people from gov't forms.

We would be spending tens of billions of dollars to cater to the needs of around 21 million people. At that price, I think that they can be inconvenienced just a little.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Again, I strongly believe that they should learn English, but I'm neither going to force them, nor am I going to screw them over in the short term.

The only way to seriously get them to learn English, as soon as possible IS to screw them in the short term. It makes it economically important then to learn the language.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Ramo


You drastically increase overhead. You'll need instructors for all the people who speak Spanish. It just isn't practical (if it were, I would advocate that).

Why not have it as one of the English lessons for immigrants as we discussed earlier? I think it would be worth it.

[KrazyHorse]

We would be spending tens of billions of dollars to cater to the needs of around 21 million people. At that price, I think that they can be inconvenienced just a little

You spend tens of billions of dollars on government forms? Talk about a frigging bureaucracy!

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
You spend tens of billions of dollars on government forms?

We would be spending tens of billions to institute the dual language system that Ramo advocated earlier in the thread. I'm presuming that it would be similar in structure to Canada's. Hence my cost estimate.