Op-Eds
As someone who has been teaching a foreign langauge (Italian) since 1972, I am delighted to see the NYC school system will add or expand 40 dual-language programs: Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew, Chinese, French and Haitian-Creole. I am also intrigued, however, that of the six “official” languages of the city of New York, according to the 2008 mayoral edict (Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian, and French Creole), Italian is not one of the language programs, whereas two non-“official” languages are, Hebrew and Japanese. In 2011, Gov. Cuomo ordered a similar mandate that included Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Russian, French, and French Creole.
