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DOWN America
By Andrew Murr
CALIFORNIA - Bilingual education has been for 30 years
a mainstay of California public schools - the pedagogical equivalent
of Ellis Island for immigrant kids. But on June 2, 1998 - if
recent polls are correct - voters may end that tradition by passing
Proposition 227, which gives kids just a year to learn English
before they enter regular classes. The vote is being watched
around the country as a survival test of bilingual instruction.
Last month Chicago imposed a strict limit on its bilingual classes;
a similar proposal has spawned a fierce debate in Denver. But
California is critical not only because it is the nation's largest
school system but also because it the most kids for whom English
is a second language. About 1.4 million students are in bilingual
classes this year; some educators think millions more - mostly
Spanish speakers - next extra help.
The theory behind bilingual education is that kids do better if
they're taught all subjects in their native language while becoming
fluent in English. Critics say it just doesn't work. One recent
national study found that students enrolled in bilingual programs
dropped out earlier. In California only 6.7 percent of the non-English
speakers moved into regular classes last year, down from 15 percent
in 1982. Other states have similar low success rates. (Of course
none of the college educated bureaucrats who run the studies ever
consider for a moment that probably the communities these kids
come out of has some impact on their ability to learn, because
kids who require bilingual education often live in a barrio or
a ghetto, where violence and escapism-through drugs and dysfunction
is rampant; it's virtually impossible to do well in class when
pre-occupied with the possibility of being shot on the way home
from school. WFI Editor)
Defenders of the classes say the problem isn't too much bilingual
education; it's too little. There's a drastic shortage of qualified
teachers, and many programs are poorly structured. "You've
got a large number of bilingual programs that are not worthy of
the name," admits Jim Lyons, executive director of the National
Association for Bilingual Education. (It's ironic that the administrators
of bilingual education offer a sub-standard program, and then
the helpless kids are blamed for the failure of the programs.
WFI Editor) In California the debate goes beyond pedagogy. "If you say you are against bilingual education, you're looked at as a racist," says Fontana teacher Melody Arganda. Because bilingual teachers get paid more, they're accused of being in it for the money. Meanwhile, no one seems to be preparing for next September, when California kids could have one year to learn English, or else. SOURCE: Newsweek magazine, 27 April, 1998. Reprinted in the public service of the national interest of the American people.(WFI EDITOR: When there still were academic standards being taught in the United States, it was widely understood that a person who spoke more than one language was considered more educated than a person who only spoke a single language. Additionally, all English-only legislation is an insult to every American whose grandparents were immigrants from another country, regardless of ethnicity. Being an American is more substantial than being able to recite the pledge of allegiance. The real punitive will underlying this kind of legislation can be found in the fact that the English language is the universal language of engineers, and most of the world's people voluntarily desire to learn English, and use every opportunity to do so eagerly; a law that creates a punishment for failing to learn English, especially for children, is mean-spirited and counter-productive. Most Americans are unaware that THE hardest language known to mankind to learn is the English language. Worse yet, if this kind of legislation is allowed to be carried into effect, the overall effect will be to produce an even LESS EDUCATED American.) |
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