Originally Posted by
kebosabi
And no, I didn't go to a well off private school that cost my parent an arm or a leg; I went to a normal public school in one of the worst school districts in the US; LAUSD.
Hey, I used to teach in LAUSD, and I resent that comment!
Each school is vastly different. Some LAUSD schools make it to the top schools in the nation. The high school in which I taught made it to Silver Medal status in US News & World Report's America's Best High Schools a few years ago. I think the top school in LAUSD made it to the top 20 in the nation, so not all are considered "bad."
Where is your alma mater?
I went to a Catholic school that did very little for me in terms of education. It was actually worse than my public school, but my parents were convinced that if you pay tuition, it must be better than free. Can you imagine paying tuition to get worse education than the local public school?
As a result, I'm a big proponent of public schools.
In any case, I took 4 years of Spanish--I would have taken it at my Catholic school or public school--and although I'm not fluent, I can certainly go to Spanish-speaking countries and get by. I think we should be teaching foreign languages by 7th grade rather than 9th grade. Then we might actually be fluent in a 2nd language. It takes 5-7 years to become truly fluent, and we don't even make a real stab at bilingualism in the US.