Abba – I am sorry, i am having a lot of trouble understanding your responses. I am also talking about Developmentally Disabled. There is no right that I know of that requires children are taught in their native tongue. There are hundreds of children in the public schools that speak no english and they get modifications and reading help but thats it. The special ed programs that teach children of different languages are hardly warehousing. What an awful thing to say. We have many kids who speak no language, or no english, and they are loved and encouraged and they learn to communicate in their own way. The lawyers for the parents are not paid by the schools under any circumstances that I could find. and we were not talking about a district deny special ed services, as you mentioned in your response. we were talking about a parent wanting the public school to pay for private school tuition because the child speaks yiddish. you cannot win a tuitioning out unless you can prove that the district is unable to educate the child in the least restrictive environment. that is in regard to their functioning level, not their religion or language. the public schools can successfully teach children with NO language, so a second language is not an issue.
And i take offense at the implication that frum parents will have the lawyer pretend that their child does not understand english if he does. that is called sheker, and genaiva and is not something to spout pridefully. Hopefully these parents you speak of who fight for funding this way dont also have a cleaning lady/baby sitter in their house who speaks no english but is left with all their young children anyway.