Your Local Press Lied About a Ban on Arabic in Schools

Leave it to our local newspapers to camouflage the whole point of a Michigan Leadership Institute (MLI) report released last week discussing ways to improve performance in Dearborn’s high schools. The real bombshell at the heart of the MLI report is that Fordson High School Principal Imad Fadlallah uses anger and intimidation to beat down his staff, his performance is seriously subpar, and Fordson has problems with security and indiscipline comparable to a dysfunctional inner-city high school.

Instead, hoping to throw Dearborn residents off the scent, Tanveer Ali at The Detroit News chose to spin it that the key proposal was for Dearborn schools to “ban Arabic.” (“Dearborn schools urged to ban Arabic”).

A recommendation to bar Arabic speech in the city's most heavily Arab public high school unless it is absolutely necessary has sparked a sharp debate between those who say it's necessary to help students perform better and those who say it only helps alienate them.

Surprisingly, in spite of all the detail the report goes into about the unnamed Principal at Fordson High, none of the local stories (two in the Detroit News, and one in the Dearborn Press & Guide), ever mentions Fadlallah. Ali wanted to create a kerfuffle over a nonexistent ban on Arabic, which of course became a rumour that DPS was discontinuing bilingual classes for many of Dearborn’s Arab-only-speaking pupils.

And lo!, the power of the press. Two days later, flush with success, Ali was able to write the following lead:

Stung by a report recommending that English only be used at one of the district's most heavily Arab high schools, administrators fielded phone calls all day Thursday from community members worried about a ban. (“Dearborn schools to remain bilingual”).

Any chance that getting “stung” might help chill the enthusiasm of wishy-washy administrators for implementing the report’s real recommendations about Fadlallah?

You may be interested to learn that the MLI report, which is 44-pages long, contains exactly one short paragraph mentioning the use of Arabic (or actually, English) at Fordson:

Prohibit the use of any language other than English within the school. (Except as required when dealing with parents or students who are not proficient in the English Language) [sic] This should include commencement addresses. To do otherwise reinforces a perception of some that Fordson is an Arab school in America rather than an American school with Arab students.

That’s it. Hardly a ban on speaking Arabic. Otherwise would there be that two-mile wide loophole about Arabic being okay when talking to parents or kids who aren’t English proficient?

Obviously this recommendation is aimed at staff and teachers urging they stick to English “except as required.” Ali falsely paraphrased this to demand a “bar [to] Arabic speech. . . unless it is absolutely necessary.” And was there a problem at staff level to justify this recommendation?

Yes. Kevin Harris, president of the Dearborn Federation of Teachers and a former economics teacher at Fordson, confirms something like this was the case. "The report's concern is that there's an overuse of the native tongue when there didn't really need to be," Harris said. When English speakers choose to communicate in Arabic he said, "It does make me suspicious and I think it's rude for them to do this. If situations were reversed, how would you feel? I don't think they get that."

The section also mentions sticking to English in “commencement addresses.” I had no idea commencement addresses at Fordson High School were being delivered in Arabic. Do Fordson school officials really need to be told this isn’t a good idea? How, for instance, can ACLU monitors know the commencement speakers aren't quoting from the Koran, or worse, know when to kill the mike if someone mentions their Lord and Savior, Jesus?! Arabic speakers get saved, too!

(I wish I could entice more Dearborn public school people and parents to send us at DU their reports about what goes on. I'm too old to pass for high school and it all sounds so interesting!)

Lastly, this short paragraph in the MLI, (which I repeat, is only a minor detour from the report’s real subject: Fadlallah), warns of “a perception. . .that Fordson is an Arab school in America rather than an American school with Arab students.”

That perception isn’t imaginary. Recently Gregg Krupa, Detroit News Muslim Affairs Correspondent, (so a guy well Down with the Community), described Fordson as a “predominantly Muslim school.” Need I ask you to imagine how fast any ACLU Commissar would denounce a mom at a Canton or Brownstown PTA meeting who accidentally described her child’s local elementary as a “predominantly Christian school”?

These articles were designed to kill the report’s findings about Fadlallah in the press, and they worked.

Imad Hamad was standing by to warn us all that speaking Arabic in a Midwestern high school is a guarantee of the First Amendment. (“Limit use of Arabic at high schools”). Four days after Ali wrote his first piece, the Press & Guide’s Jason Carmel Davis repeated almost word-for-word Ali’s “unless absolutely necessary” misstatement:

So what prompted the Michigan Leadership Institute (MLI) in a 48-page report detailing several aspects of the Dearborn Public School District's (DPS) three public high schools to single out Fordson in a recommendation to prohibit all non-English language use unless absolutely necessary to communicate with parents or students?

Three articles. Not one anywhere mentions the word, “Fadlallah.” More on the substance of this report later.