ust have a understanding of ebonics and understand that children are learning languages; "the language used in the classroom and the language used in the home (Faull. 1997. P. 2)." In the Oakland area, Black students make up 71% percent of those in special education. According to Miloy, misplacing African American students in classes because of language differences is occurring all over the United States. According to Love (1997), Robert William who coined the term ebonics, implies that 70 to 90 percent of the African American children speak ebonics and it should be taught as a linguistic heritage as opposed to placing these students in remedial classes. Studies done by researchers at Stanford University show "that black children who have been taught using the ebonics program which recognized so-called black English as distinct from standard English - have improved their ability to read and write standard English (Miloy. 1997. P.1)." This shows that there isn't a need to place African American students in remedial classes just because they speak ebonics. It is not a question of intelligence. Most of those African American students who speaks ebonics have a high IQ and remedial classes for them is not the answer. Miloy (1997) points out that these studies have shown that by using the ebonics method improves reading, writing, and speaking among the African American students. As a result of instituting this program, "students taught with ebonics have moved up two grade levels in one year (Miloy. 1997. P 2)."But, many people feel that just because ebonics is used frequently, it is not a language, although many feel that it falls in the definition of language. According to Wasserman (1997), ebonics is not considered a language nor is it seen as a nonstandard of English. Wasserman (1997) stated that ebonics is a language pattern rather than a language based on grammar, punctuation and word, therefore, it should not be seen as...
