Los
Angeles Times
Sunday, October 19, 1997
Bilingualism vs. Bilingual Education
A system that ensures failure is kept alive by the flow of federal
dollars. A 1998 initiative would bring change.
By Ron K. Unz
As each new microchip and fiber-optic cable shrinks the circumference
of our world, more and more Americans recognize the practical importance
of bilingualism. Even today, entrepreneurs or employees fluent in Chinese,
Japanese or Spanish have a distinct edge over their English-only peers.
|
Arizona
Daily Star
Saturday, September 26, 1998
Government Funding Is Skewing
Bilingual Education
By Michael S. Martinez
|
| But if other languages such as Chinese or Spanish are of
growing world importance, English ranks in a class by itself. Although
English is not and never has been America's official national language,
over the past 20 years it has rapidly become the entire world's unofficial
language, utterly dominating the spheres of science, technology and international
business. Fluency in Spanish may provide a significant advantage, but lack
of literacy in English represents a crippling, almost fatal disadvantage
in our global economy. For this reason, the better public and private
schools in Europe, Asia and Latin America all provide as much English as
early as possible to young children. |
Although English is not and never
has been America's official national language, over the past 20 years it
has rapidly become the entire world's unofficial international language.
It utterly dominates the spheres of science,
technology and international business.
Fluency in Spanish may be a significant advantage,
but lack of literacy in English is an almost fatal disadvantage in our
global economy.
For this reason, the better public and private
schools in Europe, Asia and Latin America all provide English instruction
as early as possible.
|
| During this same period, many of America's own public
schools have stopped teaching English to young children from non-English-speaking
backgrounds. Influenced by avant-garde pedagogy and multiculturalist ideology,
educational administrators have adopted a system of bilingual education
that is usually "bilingual" in name only.
Too often, young immigrant children are taught little or no English--in
Los Angeles, only 30 minutes a day, according to the school district's
longstanding bilingual master plan.
|
Many of America's own public schools,
however, have stopped teaching English to young children from non-English-speaking
backgrounds. Influenced by avant-garde pedagogy and multi-culturalist ideology,
educational administrators have adopted a system of bilingual education
that is usually bilingual in name only.
Too often, young immigrant and native born
children (who are grouped together) are taught little or no English.
Usually a small percentage of time is spent during a day's instruction,
according to the school district's long-standing master plan, for
bilingual education.
|
| This is based on the ridiculous notion that too much
English too early will damage a child's self-esteem and learning ability.
Hundreds of thousands of these American schoolchildren spend years being
taught grammar, reading, writing and all other academic subjects in their
own "native" language--almost always Spanish--while receiving
just tiny doses of instruction in English, taught as a foreign language.
|
This is based on the ridiculous
notion that too much English too early will damage a child's self-esteem
and learning ability. Hundreds of thousands of American schoolchildren
spend years being taught grammar, reading and all other academic subjects
in their ``native'' language, almost always Spanish, while receiving just
tiny doses of instruction in English. |
As one might expect, the results of such an approach
to English instruction are utterly dismal. Of the 1.3 million
California schoolchildren--a quarter of our state's total public school
enrollment--who begin each year classified as not knowing English, only
about 5% learn English by year's end, implying an annual failure rate of
95% for existing programs.
|
The results of such an approach
to English instruction are predictably dismal. Every year, only
2.7 percent of students in bilingual education make a successful transition
to English-only classrooms (a statistic recently released and published
by the Arizona Department of Education). The rest remain in classrooms
where they are typically taught in Spanish, often into the seventh and
eighth year of school.
According to the recent results of the annual
test of achievement, of the 15 lowest-scoring elementary schools in the
language part of the test, 12 are bilingual schools. Of the 15 lowest-scoring
elementary schools in the reading part of the test, 14 are bilingual schools.
Of the 10 lowest scoring junior high schools, nine are bilingual schools.
Our native-born children continue being arbitrarily
segregated into classrooms where they are required to speak Spanish, typically
with neither the knowledge nor the permission of the parents.
|
| Defenders of the status quo argue away these devastating
statistics by claiming that 5-year-old children normally require about
seven years to learn a new language and actually have much more difficulty
learning second languages than teenagers or adults; these are academic
dogmas with absolutely no basis in reality.
On the other hand, the dreadful flaws in the current classification
methodology are kept well hidden. In California, children from immigrant
or Latino backgrounds are categorized as not knowing English if they merely
score below average on English tests, meaning that unknown numbers of children
whose first and only language is English spend their elementary school
years trapped in Spanish-only "bilingual" programs.
|
Defenders of the status quo argue
away these devastating statistics by claiming 5-year-olds normally require
about seven years to learn a new language and actually have more difficulty
learning second languages than teen-agers or adults. These are academic
dogmas with no basis in reality. |
| The real dynamic driving this bizarre system is special
government funding. School districts are provided with extra dollars for
each child who doesn't know English. This generates the worst sort of perverse
incentive, in which administrators are financially rewarded for not teaching
English to young children or pretending that they haven't learned the language;
schools are annually penalized for each child who becomes fluent in English.
Under such a scheme, the widespread educational fiction that young
children require seven years to learn English suddenly becomes understandable,
as a necessary, enabling myth. And although no one has been able to
properly document the total amount of supplemental spending on children
limited in English, the annual total for California certainly exceeds $400
million and may be as much as $1 billion or more, sums that can buy a tremendous
amount of silence or complicity.
|
The real dynamic driving this
bizarre system is special government funding. School districts get extra
dollars for each child who doesn't know English. This generates the worst
sort of perverse incentive, in which administrators are rewarded for not
teaching English to young children or pretending the kids haven't learned
the language. Schools are annually penalized for each child who becomes
fluent in English.
Under such a scheme, the widespread educational
fiction young children require seven years to learn English suddenly becomes
understandable as an enabling myth.
|
| Unfortunately for its profiteers, "bilingual education"
is completely unworkable as well as unsuccessful. Even after 20 or 30 years
of effort, California has had absolutely no luck in finding the enormous
supply of properly certified bilingual teachers to match the 140 languages
spoken by California schoolchildren. All sides in the debate agree that
the old-fashioned "sink or swim" method of learning English is
the worst alternative, yet more California schoolchildren today are submerged
into this approach than are in properly structured bilingual programs,
although courts have ruled the former unconstitutional and the latter legally
mandatory. "Bilingual or nothing" in practice often means "nothing."
These facts may only now be coming to the attention of California's
affluent white elite, but they have long been well-known to the current
system's primary victims, powerless Latino immigrants and their children.
Over recent years, there have been a series of spontaneous protests against
"bilingual education" by angry parents, most notably the 1996
Latino boycott at Los Angeles' 9th Street Elementary School, which directly
inspired our "English for the Children" initiative campaign.
The initiative, targeted for next June's ballot, would end bilingual
education in California by making it truly voluntary. Parents could still
have their children placed or kept in a bilingual program, but only if
they took the affirmative step of seeking a waiver. Since public opinion
surveys, including a recent Los Angeles Times poll, have consistently shown
80% to 85% dislike for the current program among its supposed beneficiaries,
voluntary bilingual programs will become very few and far between. And
those programs that do survive our initiative by attracting genuine parental
support are probably worth preserving. In a state as large and diverse
as California, even the most unlikely program may occasionally succeed
due to specific local conditions or unique individuals.
But either way, all of California's immigrant schoolchildren finally
will be granted the right to be taught English, the universal language
of advancement and opportunity, supplementing their own family languages.
Only by ending our failed system of bilingual education can we foster the
true growth of bilingualism and the unity and prosperity of our multiethnic
society.
|
The only way to make the necessary
change so all children can learn English as quickly as possible, and thereby
increase their chances for academic success, is by uniting against this
approach and demanding a change be made.
Many critics believe our organization, English
for the Children - Arizona, is anti-immigrant, anti-Spanish language or
racist. Yet our main objective is the effective education of all children
of all races to a level that hasn't been achieved in 30 years. The goal
is for children to learn English as quickly as possible so they can reap
the benefits they so deserve.
|
| Ron K. Unz, a Silicon Valley software entrepreneur,
is the chairman of the "English for the Children" initiative
campaign. In 1994, he challenged incumbent Gov. Pete Wilson for the Republican
nomination. |
Michael S. Martinez is chairman
of Tucson-based English for the Children - Arizona. |
