Who is destroying America?

If the Civil Service FireFighters TEST was given in the English language, and these Spanish speaking Amigos passed it okay, then they know enough English to be able to speak it at all times (while on the job).

Essential services don't get too much more "essential" than having a ready fire-fighting force, and I read another article about this that claimed 85 percent of Oregon's firefighters are of Hispanic descent, so it seems to me that it might be worthwhile to provide linguistic training to both the Spanish-speaking firefighters and the English-speaking supervisors.

Lots of people feel -- and reasonably so, if you ask me -- that if you live and work in the United States you should have a conversational grasp on the English language. So why not provide some English training to legal immigrants, particularly if we need them, as it seems we do in Oregon, to fill essential jobs? It needn't necessarily be an expensive undertaking. Perhaps local highschool Spanish teachers or ESL teachers could be employed at a modest rate -- say $100 per class -- to teach an ESL class one night a week at the firehouses. This would add approximately $5,000 to the annual budget per fire department/municipality, which I don't think is a very expensive investment in essential services.

I dunno, this seems like a very real problem that has actually a pretty easy solution if you think about it. No need to "destroy" America, I mean, just solve the problem! Heck, if this were a problem here in Toledo and I knew Spanish, I'd be waaaaaaaaay more than willing to teach a class one night a week for an extra $400-$500 monthly income. I don't know how far $400-$500/month goes in Oregon, but here in Toledo that sounds like not a bad deal at all. Muncipalities could fund it in a number of ways -- even if the class was 100-percent free to firefighters, and 100-percent funded by local taxpayers, $5,000 isn't a lot to come up with when you spread it out amongst the population of all but the tiniest towns. For pennies per year, municipal citizens would be getting the peace of mind that comes with knowing that their local firefighters could all communicate with one another effectively in an emergency.

Who is destroying America?

Republicans...next question

Divide and conqeur.

This really rubs me the wrong way. Or not.

I'd like to see more extensive knowledge of it then some bullshit put together by glorified ambulance chasers posing as news professionals.

Why do we need socialized fire fighting? Why can't the people who own the property fight the fires that might destroy it themeselves. Rugged individualism.

Who already destroyed America?
Democrats-next question.

Who's destroying America?

Partisanists like Sensor and Charlie.

Why is it that when you look at issues like tax reform, illegal immigration, the deficit, education, government spending, BOTH sides promise answers but no matter who's in office the problem continues to grow?

I've got some news for ya, JM. That's still too expensive, considering that self-paced instruction based upon a computer is much cheaper and more effective for scheduling. Setup a computer (I'm sure there's one in each fire station already) and let the guys and gals go at it on Spanish instruction. It should be self-paced, but subject to deadlines. Sure, they should then go to a person for an oral examination, to demonstrate conversational ability. But that's about what we'd need a teacher for.

For something like this, we should at least TRY to implement production-line education. The cost? Probably $500 per station for software (that is, unless Czarty is buying, in which case he'll choose a $50K "enterprise solution" language instructor), then $25 per student per oral exam.

"Why the "HELL" were they given citizenship if they couldn't speak and read the English language, I can't help but wonder where they got copies of the exams,?? "BUT THEY'RE ONLY DOING "MENIAL JOBS" AMERICANS WON'T DO"?? RIGHT ?

Oh well, by the way "Charlie A-Z, correct me if I'm incorrect but some 7 yrs ago there was "budget surplus" and now your great grand children will be paying off the debt "Bush and his "REPUBLICAN" cronies have run up, if we're really lucky our head Moron won't be able to start another war with Iran before the ignorant, oil guzzling bastard is out of office,! HOPE their able to extract your Republican head out of your ass before it becomes malignant and puts you where Bush belongs,

OK, GZ I've got no problem with your idea to save money. I think the point is that the problem CAN be resolved with education, or at least that was the motivation for my post. So I think your idea is great.