Introduction The subject of Ebonics is a controversial one. This is because many believe that Ebonics constitutes poor English. It is the contention of this paper that Ebonics is a dialect of English spoken by African Americans (and others in their communities) with variances between each community. Although it may be improper to teach Ebonics in schools, it is appropriate for teachers to become aware, if not trained in, Ebonics to assist their students in learning standard American English. This is not to be confused with teaching Ebonics as a second language or placing students who speak this dialect in English as a second language classes. It is also the contention of this paper that Ebonics is a Creole language such as pidgin English spoken in the Caribbean, Hawaii, and other areas where English was introduced but not initially taught to the local populations. These populations consisted of mixed language speakers who were put together and expected to communicate such as slaves in early American history and the Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiians in Hawaii. What is Ebonics? According to Encyclopædia Britannica Ebonics is : “a language variety that has also been identified at different times in dialectology and literary studies as Black English, black dialect, and Negro (nonstandard) English. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used ambiguously, sometimes with reference to only Ebonics, or, as it is known to linguists, African American Vernacular English (AAVE; the English dialect spoken by many African Americans in the United States), and sometimes with reference to both Ebonics and Gullah, the English creole spoken by African Americans in coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia and on the offshore Sea Islands. (Encyclopedia Britannica) The Oakland Debate Back in the mid 1990’s the City of Oakland, California’s school district decided that something must be done about students’ low grades and the low graduation rate of African American students. At that time the average grade point average of high school students was 1.8 (Barnes, p248). Oakland’s district at that time was 53% African American with those students on average having the lowest grades (Harris, p2). Of the African American students 71% were enrolled in special education classes (Barnes, p248). Many of those students could not effectively communicate with their teachers. The district’s solution was to look for a way to boost student success rates. The chosen method was to address the target population’s use of Ebonics as their primary language and enroll those students in English as a second language classes just as Spanish speaking students were. It was hoped that targeting the language differences would boost student’s GPAs and graduation rates. According to Oakland Unified School District: 1997 STATISTICS OF OAKLAND’s DISTRICT   * 53% of Oakland’s District is African American.   * 71% of Special Education students were African American.   * 37% of GATE classes were African American   * 64% retained were African American.   * 67% classified as truant were African American   * 71% of African American males attend school on a regular basis   * 19% 12th grade African American students did not graduate.   * 80% of all suspended students were African American.   * 1.80