Rebonics

From EIA online (http://www.eiaonline.com/2006/12/rebonics.html):

One would think an educational proposal that was denounced all along the political spectrum (from Rush Limbaugh to Al Sharpton, for example) would not become the topic of a nostalgic 10th anniversary remembrance. But on AmericanHeritage.com, contributing editor Joshua Zeitz pens a paean to Ebonics, which he calls "a highly defensible intellectual concept" that simply "had too much political baggage to work."

If American Heritage wants to publish a lament to a school district's folly, it's entitled. But there's one point on which I have a first-hand recollection. Zeitz writes that "the Oakland Unified School District never intended to introduce classes in Ebonics or to substitute it for standard English. It hoped that by classifying Ebonics as a language, it could compel teachers to treat Ebonics-speakers in much the same way they treated native Spanish-speakers—that is, it would get them to develop curricula that would acknowledge the linguistic heritage of black students while helping them master standard English, rather than criticize them for their linguistic deficiencies."

Ten years ago, a Bay Area source sent to me the Ebonics material the Oakland district was distributing. It included workbooks and teacher guides, all with exercises in which the questions and answers were delivered in Ebonics (I'm afraid I've long since discarded that material). The claim that Oakland's Ebonics plan was never meant to substitute for standard English is simply untrue.