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A middle school in Southern California is spending $10,000 a year to teach Advanced Placement Spanish to 35 of its 650 students -- and all but one of them are already fluent in Spanish. Thirty-four of the kids in the AP class are from Mexico or are the children of Mexican immigrants. They all grew up speaking Spanish at home. The program -- the only one of its kind in California -- has outraged some critics who say they are concerned that the AP course wastes public resources – including taxpayer dollars – to teach native Spanish speakers how to speak their native language in an American public school.
This is just too funny! The Republic of California is teaching Spanish to native Spanish speakers! This is like teaching Austrian to Awnold! I'm bi-lingual so I'm going to find a school that teaches both advanced English and Spanish! I'll have all my bases covered! Only on the Left Coast!
You know what's sad though?? Most mexicans I grew up with FAILED spanish miserably. Trust me, many Californians (myself and friends included) are sick and tired of funding money to students who simply don't want to learn.
This is just too funny! The Republic of California is teaching Spanish to native Spanish speakers! This is like teaching Austrian to Awnold! I'm bi-lingual so I'm going to find a school that teaches both advanced English and Spanish! I'll have all my bases covered! Only on the Left Coast!
You do realize that there is no such languaged called "Austrian", right?
AP Spanish is a lot different than being a native speaker. My closest friend is a Cuban immigrant who barely speaks English, but his written Spanish is quite horrible. He has very little grasp of tenses, grammar and even some idioms. He knows colloquial Cuban Spanish, which doesn't help much in a college Spanish class.
In my "Advanced Spanish" class in college, I sat next to a guy from Columbia (a Spanish speaking country) and while he was near-perfect with the spoken Spanish, his written grades were always at the bottom of the class, and he worked hard.
Plus, I had to take English my whole school life and I speak English...how is that any different?
You do realize that there is no such languaged called "Austrian", right?
AP Spanish is a lot different than being a native speaker. My closest friend is a Cuban immigrant who barely speaks English, but his written Spanish is quite horrible. He has very little grasp of tenses, grammar and even some idioms. He knows colloquial Cuban Spanish, which doesn't help much in a college Spanish class.
In my "Advanced Spanish" class in college, I sat next to a guy from Columbia (a Spanish speaking country) and while he was near-perfect with the spoken Spanish, his written grades were always at the bottom of the class, and he worked hard.
Plus, I had to take English my whole school life and I speak English...how is that any different?
Yes, I am aware that German is the official language of Austria, with several additional minority languages including Bavarian. I was being facetious as Awnold was the subject of my sentence.
I've been studying Spanish since 2005, I read a write Spanish muy bien, and I speak Spanish fair to good. I have no problem holding a conversation with one or two persons depending upon their dialect and pronunciation of the vocabulary. I do have trouble with Castilian (European) Spanish as the vocabulary and grammar are somewhat different than Latino Spanish. I have been complimented on my Spanish proficiency by both Latin and Castilian Spanish speakers. I have also encountered Spanish speakers who only spoke "colloquial" Spanish, and as you noted in your post, with whom communicating was very difficult.
This will give you an idea of the difference. It is partial course description from the college board advanced placement classes.
This is for advanced placement Spanish
The course objectives are to help you:
understand Spanish spoken by native speakers at a natural pace, with a variety of regional pronunciations, in both informal (interpersonal) and formal (presentational) contexts;
develop an active vocabulary sufficient for reading newspaper and magazine articles, contemporary literature, and other non-technical writings (websites, letters and emails, advertisements, signs and instructions) in Spanish without dependence on a dictionary;
express yourself by describing, narrating, inquiring, and developing arguments in Spanish, both orally and in writing, with reasonable fluency, using different strategies for different audiences and communicative contexts.
This is advanced palcement English
The AP English Language and Composition course is designed to help students become skilled readers of prose written in a variety of rhetorical contexts and to become skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer's purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing.
The goals of an AP English Language and Composition course are diverse because the college composition course is one of the most varied in the curriculum. The college course provides students with opportunities to write about a variety of subjects and to demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose. But the overarching objective in most first-year writing courses is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, most composition courses emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication, as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the ability to write in any context. In addition, most composition courses teach students that the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing they must do in college is based on reading texts from various disciplines and periods as well as personal experience and observation. Composition courses, therefore, teach students to read primary and secondary sources carefully, to synthesize materials from these texts in their own compositions, and to cite sources using conventions recommended by professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), the University of Chicago Press (The Chicago Manual of Style), and the American Psychological Association (APA).
If schools just dropped most foreign language classes, they would save millions.
The lack of foreign language skills is why Americans are at a disadvantage in world commerce. Most Europeans are proficient in 4 or 5 languages, including English. Many Americans can barely master English!
ok so lets not teach AP english to native english speakers. is that the path to take?
the point you are missing is that AP spanish classes, or AP english classes, offer more than a basic understanding of the language. its not just about speaking the language, but about reading it. writing it. having a superior grasp of the language.
it does not matter if the kids grew up speaking the language or not, are they able to read a novel, form ideas about the relevant topics and structure an essay on such topics. AP spanish is not just about learning "moss car-nay uhhh-saw-duh poor-fuh-vor"
but im sure the OP or JJ dont really get it. they probably never took advanced classes...
Using your argument, why should the kids who were born and raised in America and who are native English speakers take English?
There's a big difference between learning basic communication in a language and learning writing, grammar, etc., learning to read and write on a higher level in the language.
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The Republic of California is teaching Spanish to native Spanish speakers! 
This is like teaching Austrian to Awnold! I'm bi-lingual so I'm going to find a school that teaches both advanced English and Spanish! I'll have all my bases covered! 
Only on the Left Coast! 
How is this different than native English speakers taking AP English?
