and while we're having this discussion--How many of us can communicate effectively with people who are profoundly deaf/hard of hearing? How many of us know ASL (American Sign Language)? There is also cued speech that can be used to communicate. Wouldn't learning those be just as beneficial to our children? Why should deaf persons have to learn to read lips, so you or I aren't inconvenience by their handicap?

Foreign language interpreters are relatively easy to find, but have you ever had to find someone who knew ASL at 2 AM? I have! Was not easy. Why not focus on teaching ASL to children?

Look, no one has said that learning Spanish is not beneficial. Those opposing what was said by Mr. O'Bama have issue with the fact that Spanish speaking people (for the most part) have not bothered to learn English! When you live in a country for 10 years--you should have at the very least, a grasp of the language, how to read that language and how to speak that language. Why should all of the "work" of learning a new language fall on the people who were born as citizens of the country?

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"