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(Thsi is a side point to a pending post, it is important point I’d like to make though I dont want it to distract from that nice summary so I’m posting it here (plus to make it easier for the mods)
In my pending post I wrote “On the other hands Students that are fluent in English* can handle Regents like Darchei produces are “to a great or significant extent” similar to Public school even if they have never played an instrument .”
A point that often gets made is that so what if they are not fluent in English they are fluent in Yiddish .We don’t give a hard time to people who, say speak Spanish. Why doesnt Yiddish count .
(leaving aside the fact that to the best of my knowledge NO school and few if any parents teach kids only Spanish, and not want the kids to speak English)
It isnt really true. Kids don’t really learn yiddish. In mys chool yiddish was taught only until 2nd grade. From then on it is learnt by osmosi, and whatever comes up in learning. Now, it is not a big deal that I did not know that Yiddish like LAshon Kodesh has masculine/feminine nouns, I grant that isn’t important. The problem though is things that don;lt coem up in leanring they have zero/no knowledge about .
As you know I am a physiscan. I speak yiddish so I get a lot of Yiddish-speaking patients. Like any New York physycian I get a lot of spanish speaking patients too.
The Yiddish speakers have no idea about basic functions of the human body. I try to explain that a patient has kidney failure. Many of them don;t know what “niren” are (unless they learnt Zevachim sure in Chumash you translate “kelayos” as “niren” but what ARE they) I try explaining what diabetes is and elevated sugar which can lead to kidney failure/dialysis. but they just dont have the vocabulary for it, not in Yiddish and not in English.
with my Spanish patients, I use an interpreter line, and we can have a meaningful conversation.
I grant this is a side issue since Its a bit weird to say that you need English education in Elementary school, in case a person gets kidney failure down the line R”l . And USUALLY if I spend enough time they get it (not always). But this is but one example, and yes there are health networks and Liasons to help guide through the medical world. Presumably the lega lworld too.
So I dont expect you to find this a convincing argument, but it is a point worth making