Assignment: is Daniel de Vise/WaPo telling the truth about "ESOL Students in Md., Va. Leaping Ahead of U.S. Peers"?

Daniel de Vise of the Washington Post offers "ESOL Students in Md., Va. Leaping Ahead of U.S. Peers" (link), which is the latest in a sub-genre of American-demoting, immigration/illegal alien-promoting articles from the mainstream media. I have more than a sneaking feeling that DeVise isn't telling the truth about something or isn't revealing something, but since I can't do everything that's where you come in: look at the underlying figures and figure out exactly how he's being misleading.

(Note: "ESOL" means "English for Speakers of Other Languages", and how it differs from ESL - English as a Second Language - is unclear. It might be another name for the same thing that was invented for some political reason.)

Comments

Oh well looks like i am goin to prison, but what is a hate video? La Raza has many hate vids out right now? If you are white its hate but if you are one of the monkey people its not hate words or acts if you are black and murder some white person its called justice or race rights and i love that word hate its so much fun and the games we play are also lots of fun to watch played out for the control of the world under freedom or monkey rights!

I don't know about you but what I always hated about the term ESL - _English as a Second Language_ was that it implied that the student/learner has already mastering/mastered a first language in terms of its proper grammar and literacy. In that regard it was sheer propaganda. Clearly this is not the case with the vast of majority of those enrolled in ESL. And this is not just because the student is often illiterate in his/her "first" language. On the other hand ESOL - English for Speakers of Other Languages maybe far more accurate because in most cases the learner is only at best able to speak and not write what amounts to a pidgin, creole, non-standard dialect or too often a totally obscure and dying tongue for which there is no proper documented written grammar, vocabulary or literature. In that regard ESOL comes much closer to revealing the absolute absurdity that "Bi-Lingual" education often is.