Educational Insanity

Following an assessment of his speaking and listening proficiency, my five-year-old son - French-English bilingual since birth - has been enrolled by his American elementary school in their ESL (English as a Second Language) programme.

All irony and hair-pulling on my side apart, I wonder whether this is because he calls "freedom fries" chips, is baffled by the Pledge of Allegiance, or simply because the tester couldn't understand his accent (it probably sounded too New Zealand).

I hate to say this, but this does seem like yet another example of the country with the world's highest spending on education producing some of the least well-educated people.