These kids will be fluent in 2 languages by Grade 5 and possibly learn even more languages later. And better able to function in this small world we all live in now.
The Associated Press - FOREST PARK, Ga.
AccessNorthGa.com: On his first day of school, 5-year-old Al-Khafid Sharrieff Muhammad came home to tell his mom he didn't understand what anyone was saying in class. Just as she was second-guessing sending her child to Georgia's first dual language public school, he grinned and started rattling off all the Spanish words he learned.
"Do you know what a nino is? It's me," Rashida Muhammad recalled Al-Khafid as saying.
While the country is divided over the role of immigrants and the importance of a national language, some English- and Spanish-speaking parents in this Atlanta suburb are bypassing the debate by sending their children to Georgia's first bilingual public school, where the goal is to have all students literate in both languages by fifth grade.
Their motivations are as diverse as the little kids excitedly chatting with one another in Unidos Dual Language Charter School's one-story building in a residential neighborhood near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
There are Hispanic immigrants who are worried their U.S.-born children will not know Spanish, and Americans who want to give their children a competitive edge, all spurring an increase in bilingual education across the country.
"I hope people start looking at a diversity of languages as a must, and stop looking at America as a one-language country," said Pedro Ruiz, president of the Washington-based National Association for Bilingual Education.
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