3rd Grade Reading Homework: What is an Illegal Alien?
This is just plain wrong. But it’s wrong in so many different ways that it’s beyond belief.
A third grade public school class in Duluth, GA, was given a reading homework assignment. 11alive.com picks-up the story:
Kelly Avalos’ 9-year old brother asked her for help on his homework. It was a reading assignment, a story about illegal immigration.
Her brother is in the third grade at Chesney Elementary School in Duluth. His class went home with a packet of reading material and in it was a story titled “What is an Illegal Alien?” “They should be more responsible in what they’re giving these kids,” Avalos said.
The assignment included multiple choice questions in order to assess the students’ reading retention. This is #6:
What does the U.S. do with illegal aliens?
A. The U.S. puts them to work in the army.
B. The U.S. shoots them into outer space.
C. The U.S. puts them to death.
D. The U.S. sends them back where they came from.
Yeah, that was the question and those were the options.
The spokesperson for the Gwinnett County School District, Jorge Quintana, said
“In this case we believe that the material was not appropriate for the classroom.”
Ya think?
Quintana said the story was one of several pieces of material from an education web site. He said each school has a media committee that advises teachers on what material from the web is appropriate. They are looking into whether the committee knew about the assignment or the teacher did it on her own. “Depending on what we find out there could be disciplinary action as well as additional staff development for our teacher,” Quintana said.
So this kind of material is in an education website? It’s called Edhelper.com, and this is pretty much all they say about themselves:
edHelper.com is dedicated to providing teachers a single shop for educational resources.
edHelper was created by a team of teachers who have edhelped (!) in its development.
You can see the specific assignment for yourself HERE.
Avalos, for her part, wants the parents to be aware of what’s being taught in their children’s schools. I’m wondering if she’d like to sit on the Texas Text Book Review Committee. It could use some help.
Two things that are importnat in this story:
- The teacher who assigned the homework “has only been teaching for one year.”
- The teacher, according to the student’s family, is Latina.
Here’s the 11alive report:
Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda
[Photo by knittymarie]
