The Boston Globe reports that Beantown teachers are culturally insensitive, inclined to boorish behavior that, according to ?some students and advocates,? creates an ?unwelcoming climate for students, potentially contributing to their loss of classroom focus, poor test performance, or a higher dropout rate.? Fifteen-year-old Shantal Solomon told the newspaper that she can ?vividly recall the day two years ago . . . when she observed her teacher scolding her friends for speaking Spanish.? ?I felt offended,? she said. ?I don't even speak Spanish. But it's a free country. We should be able to speak the language we want.? Bien s?r,?reply school leaders, who reportedly think that ?more comprehensive cultural training? for educators is right and good, and that such instruction ?could provide a critical link in closing an alarming achievement gap between students of different races and ethnicities.? All this reasoning is bizarre. Young Solomon is mistaken: It is not a free country, especially not for fifteen-year-olds, and public-school pupils do not have the right to take tests in Tagalog. And as for those unnamed ?students and advocates? and district officials confident that training teachers in the intricacies of dreidels and C?sar Ch?vez will lift test scores, eliminate lacunae, and quash truancy? Let us wish them luck in building their cloud castles.
?Liam Julian