What is bilingual education


Action Urge Congress to defend English Model official English statute Donate Current Legislation State Profiles ProEnglish BLOG Sign up for Twitter Email sign up Issues Official English Bilingual Education English on the Job Citizenship and Immigration Bilingual Ballots Puerto Rican Statehood Ending E.O. 13166, the "Multilingual Mandate" Contact us: 1601 N. Kent St. Suite 1100 Arlington, VA 22209 ph: (703) 816-8821		What is bilingual education? Bilingual education is the practice of teaching non-English speaking students core subjects in their native language as they learn English. Developed in the 1970's, such programs were intended to help children keep up with their peers in subjects such as math, science and social studies while they studied English. Bilingual program students are separated from other students for most of the school day. It was meant to be a transitional program for non-English speaking children that would enable them to move into regular classrooms within three years. Why does ProEnglish oppose bilingual education? Because it doesn’t work. After 30 years experience and the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars, research shows that bilingual education programs do not teach students the English language and literacy they need for school success. The idea may have been well intentioned but it has proven to be ineffective. Segregation by language and ethnicity does not lead to higher academic performance, does not raise students’ self-esteem, and often results in social isolation and high drop-out rates. Delaying the learning of English, the language of school and community life, lowers student grades on standard achievement tests. Graduating from high school without English fluency and literacy deprives students of opportunity in an English-speaking country. ProEnglish actively backs state initiatives to do away with bilingual education. Since Californians first voted for the “English for the Children” initiative that ended that state’s bilingual education programs in 1998, bilingual education programs increasingly are being replaced by English Immersion teaching. Arizona voted to eliminate bilingual education by an even higher margin in 2000, and Massachusetts did the same in 2002. There are now only three states that mandate bilingual education programs: Texas, Illinois and New Jersey. What programs work? English Immersion (sometimes referred to as English as a Second Language or ESL) programs work. In these programs, students spend one full school year (or longer, if necessary) intensively studying English. After that, they continue developing their English skills by using them in English-language classrooms. In California and Arizona test reports show students learn English in two years on average, and achieve passing scores on reading and math tests as well. Voluminous research comparing students in bilingual programs to students in English Immersion programs reports far better results for English Immersion. This has been documented in data from Dade County, Florida (1987), El Paso, Texas (1992), New York City Public Schools (1994), Arizona (2004, 2006, 2008) and California (2008) (see selected studies below). A Lexington Institute study published in 2008 reported that some of the highest-performing students in California public schools are children who started kindergarten with little or no English. (see Jacobs study) In June 2009 Massachusetts announced that in seventeen of the forty-two Boston high schools the valedictorian of the graduating class was a student who had come from another country within the past few years, without knowing any English. Thanks to English Immersion classrooms these students not only learned English rapidly but were able to achieve the highest possible degree of success in high school. In California, Superintendent of Schools Ken Noonan, former head of the California Association for Bilingual Education, changed his position completely after seeing the results of the first year of English Immersion teaching and has become a vocal supporter of English Immersion programs. What is dual immersion? Dual immersion programs, sometimes erroneously called ‘bilingual education’ programs, refer to programs in which roughly half the students are native English speakers and half are native speakers of another language. Students are taught in English half the school day and the other half of the school day in the second language. The goal is to help all students become bilingual in a second language. While such programs are popular with parents of English-speaking students they are expensive and require there to be equilibrium between two language groups. Teaching children a second language is a laudable goal. But Pro English believes the first responsibility of the public schools is to teach non-English speaking children English as rapidly as possible. So why do schools still use bilingual education? Despite thirty years of failure a politically powerful bureaucracy continues to push bilingual education because it is heavily subsidized and generates teaching and administrative jobs as well as higher salaries and more spending. Some educators and activists promote bilingual education as a means of "maintaining one’s cultural heritage." That is not the job of our public schools but the job of the family and the community. With 327 languages spoken in the U.S. today, the job of our schools is not to maintain native languages, but to give students the tools they need to succeed as citizens of an English-speaking country. Politicians sometimes fear a vote against bilingual education will suggest they are hostile to minorities. But millions of people in three states voted overwhelmingly for English immersion teaching, with very strong support from immigrant communities – one more sign that politicians are out of step with the people they represent. A READ Institute survey found that 81% of Hispanics want their children to learn English quickly; only 12% want their children taught in Spanish. This is one of many surveys that reveal such attitudes. Immigrants come to this country seeking the benefits of our society, yet our public schools often fail to give them the skills they need to prosper and participate as self-sufficient members of our democracy. Resources: How ProEnglish is fighting to end bilingual education The current status of bilingual education in America Papers on the effectiveness of bilingual education Selected Studies comparing Effectiveness of English Immersion Programs vs. Bilingual Programs for English Learner Students, Rosalie Pedalino Porter, Ed.D The Case Against Bilingual Education, The Atlantic Magazine, May 1998 The Benefits of English Immersion, Educational Leadership, January 2000 Report to the Arizona legislature concerning bilingual and "English as a Second Language" programs Test results show benefits of Proposition 227, which banned bilingual education Comparison of Bilingual and ESL students in New York City