It's hard for me to think of Ebonics as a language, simply because it sounds a lot to me like the language I speak at home and in the classroom. It is comprised of the same words I use, I can understand it, and, if I wanted to, I could probably speak Ebonics without a formal instructor.
It may be well and true that Ebonics has its roots in the African slave trade, evolving by force from tribal tongues into a way to talk back to 'Ol Massa without him realizing it. But this can be said about many of the dialects of English...even those spoken by the illiterate rednecks of backwoods Mississippi, who I'm sure inherited their speech patterns from a variety of sources. But are we advocating a federal fund for Mississippi-ites?

No. Because they speak INCORRECT English.

Whether or not Ebonics is a language is, to me, irrelevant. Oakland education professionals should be trusted and able enough to show the federal education boards that SOME kind of change is necessary. They have a mountain of evidence - low grades, low standardized test scores, low comprehension of Standard English (whatever that may be.) This, coupled with an obvious need for teacher instruction in Ebonics, is a sufficient argument to receive federal funding. Declaring it as a language put everyone on the offensive, when the issue itself is not about "language." It's about doing what the education system was meant to do: teach and teach well.

This resolution was a way to achieve that goal. I just don't think it was the BEST way.