Section 1 Findings and declarations - Massachusetts Statutes

Section 1. Findings and Declarations

The People of Massachusetts find and declare that:

(a) The English language is the common public language of the United States of America and of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is spoken by the vast majority of Massachusetts residents, and is also the leading world language for science, technology, and international business, thereby being the language of economic opportunity; and

(b) Immigrant parents are eager to have their children become fluent and literate in English, thereby allowing them to fully participate in the American Dream of economic and social advancement; and

(c) The government and the public schools of Massachusetts have a moral obligation and a constitutional duty to provide all of Massachusetts’s children, regardless of their ethnicity or national origins, with the skills necessary to become productive members of our society. Of these skills, literacy in the English language is among the most important.

(d) The public schools of Massachusetts have done an inadequate job of educating many immigrant children, requiring that they be placed in native language programs whose failure over past decades is demonstrated by the low English literacy levels of those children.

(e) Immigrant children can easily acquire full fluency and literacy in a new language, such as English, if they are taught that language in the classroom as soon as they enter school.

(f) Therefore it is resolved that: all children in Massachusetts public schools shall be taught English as rapidly and effectively as possible.