Policy wonks Robert Holland and Don Soifer of the Lexington Institute have taken a look at various education reforms across the country, one of which caught our eye though we're hard pressed to call it a reform. Massachusetts is getting serious about enforcing its requirement that bilingual education teachers need to be able to speak English since after all that is the language they are supposed to be teaching. Sound absurd? Not when you look at how many can't. For instance in Lowell, Massachusetts, school officials have had to dismiss 24 teachers for failing to meet the state's English-fluency requirement. While such hasty firings may not be the best idea (at the behest of a Superior Court Judge, Lowell and others districts now are giving teachers more than one shot), insisting English teachers know English is just a good idea (in a no-duh kind of way). It is not, however, an original one - as Holland and Soifer point out, there is actually a similar provision in the federal law that teachers must be able to speak English (Title III, Section 3116).