|
Q: is bilingual education failing to help America's schoolchildren?
by Linda Chavez , James J. Lyons Yes: The agenda of Latino activists is closing the door on many Hispanic children. A mother should know. To measure the success of bilingual education in America, listen to the testimonies of some Hispanic mothers who are suing the state of New York for keeping their children in bilingual programs beyond the state-mandated three years. Juana Zarzuela testified that her son was transferred from bilingual education to special education despite her objection to his participation in either program. "My son has been in bilingual education for five years and in special education since 1994. [He] cannot read or write in English or Spanish," she said. Carmen Quinones testified, "My son is in ninth grade and has been in bilingual education since he entered the school system. My son is confused between Spanish and English." Ada Jimenez testified that her grandson also cannot read or write in either language after five years of bilingual education. According to Jimenez: "I personally met one of his teachers in the bilingual program who did not speak any English. We were told that because my grandson has a Spanish last name, he should remain in bilingual classes." Because of his name, the school put Jimenez's grandson into a bilingual program in which up to 80 percent of his day was spent in Spanish - even though he did not speak any Spanish. Parents aren't the only ones upset about bilingual education. Edwin Selzer, an assistant principal for social studies at one New York high school, testified that "once a child was in a bilingual program, he remained in such a program and was never mainstreamed into English-speaking classes. Even when students themselves asked to withdraw from the bilingual program, the assistant principal [for] foreign languages did not grant their request." Selzer also stated that "even the Spanish skills of students in bilingual programs were poor - many students graduating from Eastern District High School were illiterate in both English and Spanish." Bilingual education is not just a problem in New York, but across the nation, and these kids aren't all immigrants. Of all children whom the federal government estimates need help in English, 60 percent are U.S.-born American citizens, some of whose families go back several generations. Nor are language-minority children the only ones who suffer from this program; native English speakers are subjected to a substandard education in the name of diversity as well. Cherise Johnson's son was placed in a bilingual dual-immersion program in a California school despite her objections. According to the school, there was no space available in regular classrooms. Dual immersion combines native English- and other-language speakers for instruction in two languages. This type of instruction is being promoted in several cities in California, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. But the method is not suitable for all children, especially those who already may be performing below grade level. San Francisco experimented with dual immersion and decided to abandon it. School Superintendent Bill Rojas banned 600 English-speaking black students from Chinese bilingual programs because their test scores were far below that of black students in regular classes. "We would go and visit schools and find three African-American students in a class with 27 Chinese students. I'd see a teacher trying to talk multilingually. I'd say, `Aren't the English-speaking students getting less?' and she'd say, `Yes'" Rojas told the Los Angeles Times last June.
In Los Angeles, Latino parents were so upset about the failure of bilingual education that they kept nearly 100 of their children from school for almost two weeks to protest the lack of sufficient instruction in English. One parent told Education Week, "I don't want to wait so long for her to be in all-English classes. I want her to be a professional when she grows up, to have more than us." These parents have a legal right to request all-English instruction for their children, but their rights effectively were nullified by the hurdles school administrators placed before them. The boycott ended only when the school promised to provide classes in English. The school also promised to halt the practice of requiring parents to attend parent-teacher conferences before allowing children out of the bilingual program. Parent-teacher conferences often are used to bully, intimidate or shame parents into leaving their children in bilingual programs they know don't work. Bilingual education is working so poorly in California that the state Board of Education is backing off from forcing school districts to use native-language instruction. And, after years of single-minded devotion to long-term bilingual education, the Los Angeles Unified School District actually is trying to move children into all-English classes sooner. The California Teachers Association also has joined the stampede away from bilingual education. In its June 1995 newsletter, the association stated that the overemphasis on children's native language had "crippled the Spanish-speaking child's educational development." Bilingual education began in the late sixties as a small, 7.5 million federal program primarily for Mexican-American children. The idea was to teach them in Spanish for a short period until they got up to speed in English. Democratic Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas, a leading sponsor of the first federal bilingual law in 1968, explained that its intent was "to make children fully literate in English" and not to make the mother tongue dominant." Unfortunately, bilingual education soon fell under the sway of political activists who promoted native-language instruction as a civil right. In fact, the Supreme Court's Lau vs. Nichols decision in 1974 held that the civil rights of language-minority children were being violated unless they were offered some program to ensure they receive an equal educational opportunity. The court did not, however, require native-language instruction. The US. Commission on Civil Rights, nevertheless, used Lau as an excuse to insist that schools offer bilingual education or face a cutoff of federal funds. The reason bilingual education is failing so many of America's students is because it relies on a flawed theory. This theory states that to become fully proficient in a new language, a student first must be literate and proficient in his or her native language. This means that non-English-proficient children must be taught to read and write in their native language in a five-to seven-year program in which up to 80 percent of their day is spent hearing, speaking, reading and writing their native language. Unfortunately almost no empirical evidence supports this theory, which ignores virtually everything we know about language acquisition. The theory itself was not developed until after bilingual education was institutionalized around the United States and is more a rationalization than a legitimate educational theory. Several published studies prove that the push for bilingual education is based more upon political muscle-flexing by the ethnic and education lobbies than upon sound educational theory. The best that can be said in favor of bilingual education is that its efficacy is unproved. In fact, most research that would seem to validate bilingual education is unsound. The Congressional Research Service conducted a review of bilingual education and found that, at best, the evidence was inconclusive. Even Professor Kenji Hakuta, a leading advocate of bilingual education, admitted in 1986 that "an awkward tension blankets the lack of empirical demonstration of the success of bilingual-education programs." The National Academy of Sciences, or NAS, reviewed two Department of Education studies of bilingual education in 1992 and found them so methodologically unsound as to be useless. These two major studies were so bad that the NAS actually recommended that the Education Department not seek to fund any specific additional analyses from the Longitudinal or Immersion studies." Despite this evidence, the National Association for Bilingual Education, or NABE, had the gall to claim that the NAS review "validate" these two studies and bilingual education. Professor Christine Rossell of Boston University recently completed an extensive review of more than 300 bilingual-education studies. She found that out of only 60 methodologically acceptable studies measuring reading ability, 78 percent found bilingual education to be no better or actually worse than doing nothing. In terms of math scores, 91 percent of only 34 scientifically valid studies showed bilingual education to be no better or worse than doing nothing. After visiting dozens of bilingual classes, Rossell found that those few-bilingual programs that do work do so only because they subvert the theory and do not waste time trying to teach children to read and write in any language other than English. She has recommended that the best program for language-minority children is immersion in English in a class with a specially trained teacher who may use their native language only when really necessary. In spite of the evidence, Latino parents who oppose bilingual education often find themselves fighting a lonely battle. In fact, the most striking similarity between the parent groups in Los Angeles and New York is that they both are being assisted by local religious organizations and not traditional Hispanic advocacy or civil-rights groups. Lacking a racial identity to unify diverse Hispanic groups around the country, Latino activists rely on Spanish to fulfill this function. Latino activists may believe it is in their material interests to maintain the Spanish language of their constituency rather than help them assimilate and learn English. Despite their attempts, professional Latino lobbyists have not convinced a majority of Hispanics that bilingual education is better for their children. Surveys show that the overwhelming majority of immigrants believe it is a family's duty, and not the school's, to help children maintain their native language. When Mexican and Cuban parents were asked their opinion in an Education Department survey, four-fifths declared their opposition to teaching children in Spanish if it meant less time devoted to English. With more than 20 million immigrants in the United States, it's more important than ever to teach newcomers to speak English and to think of themselves as Americans if we hope to remain one people, not simply a conglomeration of different groups. It is time for federal and state legislators to overhaul bilingual education. Clearly, the best policy for children - and for the country - is to teach English to immigrant and nonimmigrant children as quickly as possible. No: When conducted properly, native-language programs help students learn English and remain in school. To Roberto Feliz, a Boston-area anesthesiologist, the question of whether bilingual education is failing America's school-children is ridiculous. "In my schooling and learning, bilingual education was the difference between life and death," he told a congressional panel during a 1993 hearing. Feliz recounted how he "hit the wall of English" at age 10, when his family moved from the Dominican Republic to Boston. In Santo Domingo, Feliz was a straight-A student whose school nickname of "cerebrito," or "little brain," reflected his enthusiasm and accomplishments. All that changed when he was enrolled in a fifth-grade monolingual-English classroom in Boston. "Within no time the excitement that I associated with schooling turned to agonizing frustration. I can't explain how frustrating it is to know something, and know that you know it, but to be unable to communicate your knowledge in a classroom. Not only was I not learning, but teachers treated me as if I were stupid; they had no way of knowing what I knew. I hated school and would have dropped out if my mother had let me." Feliz told lawmakers that, in his second year at Washington Irving School, a woman called Ms. Malave came to his classroom and told him that he was going to be placed in a class in which he could learn both in English and Spanish. "On that day, Ms. Malave seemed like God! And today, Ms. Malave still seems like God, for she gave me a second chance at my education." Feliz was enrolled in bilingual classes from the sixth grade until the 11th. "In the 11th grade, I found that I was truly ready to make the transition to an English-only program and made the transition successfully." He entered an honors program for the remainder of high school and won a Presidential Scholarship to Boston University. After receiving his bachelor's degree in computer science, Feliz earned a medical degree from Dartmouth University. When he appeared before the House subcommittee, he was completing the last year of a four-year residency in anesthesiology at Beth Israel Hospital, a Harvard University teaching hospital. Feliz's experience with bilingual education is both atypical and typical of the experiences of the 2.5 million to 3.5 million "language-minority" children who speak a language other than English at home and who are deemed by state and local standards to be "limited-English-proficient," or LEP. A 1993 Education Department report found that more than 14 percent of U.S. schools with LEP enrollments offered no special instructional services or no services specifically designed for these students, and that another 49 percent provided only monolingual English instructional services to their LEP students. More than half of the LEP students were not able to use their language and the knowledge encoded therein, as Feliz put it, to move forward in their studies. Feliz's six-year enrollment in bilingual education also was highly atypical. The mean tenure of LEP students in bilingual education is less than three-and-a-half years, too short a period to ensure mastery of what linguists call "cognitive academic language proficiency" - the ability to learn academic content exclusively in English as well as native-English speakers. Researchers agree that it takes five to seven years for the average LEP child to meet this practical and vital measure of English proficiency. Feliz's luck in having bilingual teachers who were proficient both in English and his native language also was atypical. In 1993, nearly one of every six U.S. teachers - more than 360,000 - was teaching LEP students in grades K-12. Less than half, or 42 percent, spoke the native language of their students. Feliz's educational accomplishments, however, are typical of those LEP students who are fortunate enough to receive a substantial amount of their instruction, for a substantial period of time, through both English and their native language. Research shows that LEP students who are provided with quality bilingual education excel in their mastery of English and other subjects. At the same time, these students develop proficiency in a second language, an important resource for the nation's security and economic future. Sixth-graders at the public Oyster Elementary School in Washington annually score at the 12th-grade level in English-language arts and at the 10th- and 11th-grade levels in math and science on nationally normed standardized achievement tests. At Oyster, all students (both native English speakers and native Spanish speakers) are taught half the time in English and half the time in Spanish in a "two-way" bilingual-education program from kindergarten through sixth grade. The fact that Feliz completed high school and went on to college also is typical of students who have received substantial bilingual education. School officials in the Calexico Unified School District, located on the U.S.-Mexico border in California, cite the availability of bilingual education as the most essential factor responsible for the district's low dropout rate and high rate of college admission. Fully 98 percent of Calexico students are Hispanic; 80 percent are LEP; and 30 percent are the children of migrant farmworkers. Average family income in Calexico, where unemployment runs between 25 and 35 percent, is less than $12,000 annually. Calexico's dropout rate of 11 to 15 percent is half the California state average for Hispanic students. In 1993, 93 percent of the district's graduating seniors were accepted by a junior college or four-year college or university. Large-scale national studies conducted and reviewed by the nation's top educational researchers confirm the success of bilingual education that makes significant use of a LEP student's native language for a substantial period of time. Both the General Accounting Office and the prestigious National Academy of Sciences have reviewed research on the effectiveness of bilingual education to answer the question of whether it is helping or harming LEP schoolchildren. Their essential findings on native-language instruction were the same: * It does not impede and actually seems to facilitate student acquisition of English; * It permits LEP students to make continuous and timely progress in subject-matter learning, thereby reducing the rate of student grade retention and the likelihood that students will drop out of school; and * It results in a much higher level of parent involvement in schooling. If bilingual education is helping America's schoolchildren, why all the political fuss? There are two primary reasons. First, as with all other school programs - whether math education, science education, vocational education or special education - there are some bilingual-education programs that are not working well. Some are bilingual in name only, staffed by monolingual English-speaking teachers with no professional preparation in the instruction of LEP students. In a few instances, students have been assigned to bilingual education on the basis of an educationally irrelevant criterion such as surname, a practice condemned by the National Association for Bilingual Education, or NABE. In some localities, LEP students have been assigned to bilingual-education programs without the informed consent and choice of their parents, another practice condemned by NABE and contrary to law in federally funded programs. Yet the fact that some bilingual-education programs need improvement and reform does not warrant the elimination of native-language instruction any more than the elimination of math education, science education, vocational education or any educational program that appears to be failing some students. A second reason bilingual education remains controversial is that a small cadre of individuals have a compelling interest in keeping it so. They have built their careers and organizations around the political cause of opposition to bilingual education. Linda Chavez parlayed her Hispanic surname and strident criticism of bilingual education into an appointment by President Reagan to be staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She later moved on to serve as president of U.S. English, a multimillion-dollar lobby founded in 1983 to oppose bilingual education and promote governmental restrictions on the use of non-English languages. Although Chavez resigned from U.S. English following press coverage of the racist views of the organization's founders and funders, she started her own organization, the Center for Equal Opportunity, to bash native-language instruction. Chavez is aided by Larry Pratt, founder of English First, another Washington lobbying group set up exclusively to promote an English-only agenda. Pratt, who also founded and heads the lobbying organization Gun Owners of America, was the adviser to former presidential contender Pat Buchanan who resigned from the campaign after the press reported his numerous contacts with racist and extremist groups. U.S. English funded the establishment of two "satellite" antibilingual education organizations. The first, Learning English Advocates Drive, or LEAD, was started in 1987 by a Los Angeles elementary-school teacher, Sally Peterson, who claims that "native-language-based bilingual education is a human tragedy of national proportions." Peterson teaches her LEP students exclusively in English; she is assisted by a paid bilingual paraprofessional who is able to communicate with the LEP students and their families. When Peterson was asked by the press last year for information on her organization, she declined to reveal its budget, sources of funding or even the size of its membership. A second organization subsidized by U.S. English is Research in English Acquisition and Development, or READ, founded by Keith Baker, a former Education Department researcher who made a career out of attacking bilingual education. Baker's research and claims against bilingual education were reviewed by a special panel of the American Psychological Association which found them professionally substandard and invalid. The fact that virtually every national "mainstream" education organization in the United States, including the National PTA, the National School Boards Association, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, supports bilingual education has not quieted criticism of bilingual instruction. That's understandable: The money from the nativist political lobbies keeps the voices of critics loud, but not loud enough to drown out the growing number of success stories such as that told by Roberto Feliz. |
