Why Johnny and Jose Can't Read

Why can't Johnny and Jose read?   It is very true that our teachers are the Few, the Proud and the Underpaid, the fearless Marines of education holding out against overwhelming odds.   There is another problem, though.   Our education establishment stubbornly, pigheadedly, insists on treating English as cultural legacy, not as a communication technology.   Too much time is devoted to the usage of "like and as" and to ancient Anglo-Saxon literature like Pride and Prejudice and Beowulf.   Picture some poor immigrant kid from Sudan trying to make sense out of Pride and Prejudice, a story about rich English people who don't work, or a kid from Sonora trying to comprehend Beowulf, which isn't even written in an English language that anyone uses anymore, for heaven's sake.  The leftwing ethnic studies crowd hasn't  provided a solution, either: they've just provided an alternative biased cultural lesson.   Stop treating English as cultural legacy and a political cause,  and start treating it as a communication technology we all need to learn to use.