Our position:

Lawmakers should approve extra funding for Hispanic students, but should require that learning English rapidly be the goal.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Suellen Reed wants $24 million over two years to help an estimated 13,000 Hispanic students who can’t speak English. Currently, schools receive about $50 for each such child. Reed is asking the next session of the General Assembly for $750 per child to hire teachers, buy books and provide counseling.

Indiana’s Hispanic population has ballooned in the past 10 years. The number of Hispanic students in the state’s public schools has more than tripled in the same time. So a sizable increase in language funding is surely in order.

Also in order is attaching some strings. The funding should carry clear restrictions on how it is spent.

Total immersion in English should be the method and the goal. After decades of experimentation, bilingual education has been discredited. And no more so than in California, where two years ago, voters passed a ballot initiative ejecting it from public schools.

As critics noted, in most cases the method was neither bilingual nor educational. Students did not, as the theorists claimed, learn English better by learning in Spanish. Instead, immigrant children were leaving school unable to speak English fluently or fully understand it.

In too many instances, the estimated one million Spanish-speaking students were kept in bilingual classes for six elementary grades and often into high school. Early on, there were questions as to the efficacy of the method. But doubts were silenced by the demands of Latino politicians, ethnic activists and teacher unions, which liked the $5,000 annual bonuses paid bilingual teachers.

Two years after the California law was passed, the move back to English immersion is proving justified. According to standardized test scores, immigrant students have improved in reading and other subjects at often striking rates. The results have been felt in Arizona. In November, that state approved a referendum ordering the dismantling of its bilingual education programs.

Hispanic students in California, and soon in Arizona, will follow the path of all previous generations of immigrants. Their instruction will be in English and only English. They will be immersed in the language of their new homeland. Hoosier lawmakers should insist the same method be used in Indiana’s public schools.



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