Subject: Re: 16% of kids don't speak English
No one seems interested in addressing the other issue - 16% of kids in our public schools don’t speak English. That’s a huge drain on school resources, only partially compensated by the federal government. Our community has to provide the rest.

ESL. That's really the only way to address it. The kids will learn fast (they seem to have a lot of plasticity in their minds, and pick up languages very quickly...ref: 1poorkid).

And education is largely controlled at the local level (even more with the defacto elimination of the DOE). School boards are local, operating within a very broad, general framework of the DOE (at least until the past year or so). So, yes, the community is very involved in education. That appears to be intentional. The community also benefits from that education.

Education is an investment, not an expense.