Speaking Up For Latin

The middle school Latin program in Newton, MA, is on the chopping block thanks to the budget crisis and the short-sightedness of the district’s superintendent. This Boston.com article makes a great case for maintaining Latin in any school. My favorite part of the article is the following:

Rothwell said that another study of inner-city students showed that 8 months of Latin instruction led to gains in English literacy scores that were comparable to 38 months of instruction in Spanish or French.

“The way I see it is, if you have two cars, one of which gets 25 miles to the gallon and one of which gets 40 miles to the gallon, you don’t get rid of the one that gets 40 miles to the gallon when the price of gas goes up,” Rothwell said.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/newton/2011/03/speaking_up_for_latin_in_newto.html