This story isn't exactly "today's news," but it's pretty interesting: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...0050214/ts_latimes/learnenglishjudgetellsmoms
Frankly, I think it's a good idea to have the mother at least start learning English, since she will be making life particularly difficult for her child if she doesn't. I agree that forcing a speaker of a language totally unrelated to English (Mixteco) to be able to speak fourth grade-level English within 6 months is a bit over the top, especially since failing to do so means the mother could lose custody of her child. And the order to use birth control is ridiculous. Still, Judge Tatum is not giving the impression that he will be too strict on enforcing the ruling. In the Lebanon Democrat (Jan. 26), he admitted that he would not take away the mother's custody of her child for not using birth control, and he only said she "could 'potentially' lose custody" for not demonstrating satisfactory English skills by the set deadline.
Is Tatum following the law? The expert quoted in the Yahoo! article certainly didn't think so, but keep in mind that she "was not familiar with Tatum's orders." I'm not saying that she's wrong; I'm just pointing out what the article did. Also, Jerry Gonzalez, who is representing the mother in this case, said in the aforementioned Lebanon Democrat article, "As a juvenile judge his job is to determine if the woman is an unfit parent or if this child is in danger of substantial harm"; interestingly, a Constitutional law expert quoted on FNC's coverage of this story felt that there is indeed a reasonable basis for calling the parent "unfit." So maybe Tatum was doing his job after all.
For the most part, I think Tatum did the right thing in having the mother learn English, even though some parts of the ruling may have been a little excessive.
Frankly, I think it's a good idea to have the mother at least start learning English, since she will be making life particularly difficult for her child if she doesn't. I agree that forcing a speaker of a language totally unrelated to English (Mixteco) to be able to speak fourth grade-level English within 6 months is a bit over the top, especially since failing to do so means the mother could lose custody of her child. And the order to use birth control is ridiculous. Still, Judge Tatum is not giving the impression that he will be too strict on enforcing the ruling. In the Lebanon Democrat (Jan. 26), he admitted that he would not take away the mother's custody of her child for not using birth control, and he only said she "could 'potentially' lose custody" for not demonstrating satisfactory English skills by the set deadline.
Is Tatum following the law? The expert quoted in the Yahoo! article certainly didn't think so, but keep in mind that she "was not familiar with Tatum's orders." I'm not saying that she's wrong; I'm just pointing out what the article did. Also, Jerry Gonzalez, who is representing the mother in this case, said in the aforementioned Lebanon Democrat article, "As a juvenile judge his job is to determine if the woman is an unfit parent or if this child is in danger of substantial harm"; interestingly, a Constitutional law expert quoted on FNC's coverage of this story felt that there is indeed a reasonable basis for calling the parent "unfit." So maybe Tatum was doing his job after all.
For the most part, I think Tatum did the right thing in having the mother learn English, even though some parts of the ruling may have been a little excessive.