The Pledge in Spanish in grade school? Kidding, right?

(By Scott Sexton, Winston-Salem Journal) - Stuart Barry was appalled when his child came home last week with a note saying that she'd been asked to read the daily announcements over the intercom -- a high honor in elementary school -- and to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

In Spanish.

"I have nothing but praise for the school," Barry, a naturalized citizen originally from Great Britain, said. "We stumbled across it by her showing it to my wife. I went bananas."

So much so that he fired off an e-mail to officials at Southwest Elementary School and members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools board which can be summed up thusly: Hel-lo? Anybody home?

Teaching kids about the great American melting pot and to value difference are noble goals.

Still, there are limits. And you'd think that educators would know instinctively that having an elementary school student recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish might offend some.

"This effort at diversity insults my family as American citizens," Barry wrote. "This activity is reverse assimilation."