There's an even more insidious facet of correctness in the State Standardized exams that determine whether students move forward, one that is particularly - and sneakily - influential in lower grades. Teachers and schools are promoted and financed by the scores on those exams, and the exams, especially in the questions, rigorously promote academic language.

While a significant goal of these exams in high school is college acceptance, where academic language is insisted upon, such pressures really don't apply to early language acquisition. Yet the ways in which we push it above all others are legion.