PUBLIC SCHOOLS FEAR "EBONICS" WILL DESTROY PUBLIC SUPPORT.
     The reaction of public school administrators and the media
frenzy prompted by the Oakland, California school board's
announcement that "Ebonics" was the 'genetically-based' primary
language of American blacks and therefore black kids should be
taught in bilingual instruction just like Mexican kids is proving
to be the last straw for a public already increasingly unwilling to
politically support the public schools or send their kids to them.
The reason "Ebonics" has been in major newspapers and on talk radio
nationwide daily since the Oakland announcement two weeks ago
instead of being a one-day wonder is that for the public, it is
literally the last straw that is breaking any confidence in the
credibility of the public schools.
     Public-school proponents are working hard on damage control.
In the 1/9 Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, the remarks of Pat
Finger, who supervises English instruction in the Guilford County
Schools, were cited:
               "Guilford educators do not teach Ebonics
          - also known as Black English - and have no
          plans to do so, Pat Finger, who oversees
          English language instruction, said this week.
          The N.C. Department of Public Instruction does
          not mention Ebonics in its Standard Course of
          Study, the basis for curricula in the state's
          117 school systems.  There are no plans to add
          it".
               "'We teach standard English,' said
          Finger, Guilford's curriculum specialist for
          communications skills.  'We simply believe in
          and ask teachers to respect the language that
          the students bring to school."
     The school bureaucrat's remarks show how the public schools
are desperately walking a fine line between seeking to avoid losing
credibility and public support while still staying politically
correct and not offending groups claiming "victim" status
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