nglish as well, not because one language was superior to the other, but because English is the lingua franca of the United States. By honoring the indigenous speech of each student, the Oakland schools sought to instill in their pupils an appreciation for the importance and elegance of the spoken and written word (Associated Press, 1996, December 24).
The outcry that greeted this proposal from across the country -- and that included both protests and support from all racial groups -- was astonishing in its intensity. Or at least it was initially astonishing, but it should not have been, for the issue at stake was far more than simply the question of whether Ebonics -- or Standard Black English, as linguists have been calling it for years -- was in fact a true dialect, a vernacular, a sub-dialect, a regional dialect or another form of language division. While such things are properly the subject of debate among linguists (who can, like all scholars, become rather heated in their support of their ideas on a subject), such fine scholarly distinctions are unlikely to make it to talk radio. No one would have cared if a linguist had given a paper at an academic conference looking at the historical roots of black English or poetic cadence in black English or differences among different African-American groups in verb formation. But Ebonics was different, because it went to the heart not of a particular dialect or even to the social standing of a particular racial group but to what it means to be an American (Associated Press, 1997, February 11).
Ebonics was so vociferously debated by so many people in different sectors of society because it called into question the basic goals of public primary and secondary education in the United States. This paper examines one of those goals -- the teaching of pupils about the multicultural nature of our society -- within the context of the purpose of education as a whole.
It seems hard to imagine ...