Bilingual-Ed Article Stirs Furor
Junior faculty members at a university usually can expect some acclaim from their colleagues for publishing an article in a top academic journal. But two University of New Mexico professors became the center of intense controversy late last year after their article criticizing bilingual education was accepted for publication in the Review of Educational Research. Jaime Grinberg, one of the authors, contends colleagues in the College of Education tried to suppress publication of the article. Grinberg also said the furor over his paper played a role in his decision to take a job at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where he begins work this month. The editor of the Review of Educational Research said a UNM faculty member contacted her early this year in an effort to block publication of the article. "I have never gotten a call like that before or since," Kathryn Borman, the editor, said in a telephone interview from Tampa, Fla. The article is scheduled for publication later this summer, she said. Borman said the call came from UNM's College of Education, but she didn't remember the caller's name or whether the caller was an administrator or a faculty member. "I did get the sense that (the article) had excited some controversy," Borman said. "I just find it odd that someone would make that kind of call questioning the credibility of his colleague." Grinberg wrote the paper with College of Education professor Elizabeth Saavedra, who declined to discuss reaction to the paper. In their paper, Grinberg and Saavedra contended that bilingual education has fallen short of its mission of giving children fluency in more than one language. That argument upset members of UNM's College of Education, Grinberg said in a recent interview. Bilingual educators have long weathered attacks from the right "but they aren't used to criticism from the left," he said. Bilingual education measures success by a student's ability to use English, Grinberg and Saavedra contend in their article. That focus, they say, encourages students to concentrate on learning English and abandon their native languages. Instead, "New Mexico schools should educate students who can speak and write in two languages," Saavedra said in an interview. "But school districts do not apply themselves to doing this. This is not a goal." The article also contends that university programs in bilingual education fail to prepare teachers for the political controversies they often face in public schools. "A teacher who wants to teach a bilingual program may face a lot of political opposition from school administrators or parents," she said. Members of the bilingual faculty at UNM's College of Education either could not be reached for comment or declined to comment for publication. Viola Florez, dean of the College of Education, said last week she had browsed an early draft of the article and could not comment on its substance. Grinberg and Saavedra circulated draft copies of the paper last year. "I'll be very interested to see the final draft of it when it comes out in the journal," Florez said. "It will stimulate a lot of discussion, I'm sure." Grinberg said he first became aware of the stir in October in a meeting with his then-department chairman, Bill Kline, who told Grinberg the controversy had "hit the fan." Kline later told him that people were trying to interfere with publication of the article. Grinberg declined to name individuals who tried to block publication. Kline, former director of language, literacy and social studies at UNM, said in a written statement that members of the bilingual education faculty disagreed with portions of the article "and voiced these concerns to me and to some of their colleagues." In his statement, Kline defended Saavedra and Grinberg and said they were within their rights to publish the article. Katherine Herr, an associate professor in the College of Education, said she was surprised by reaction to the article. The article prompted a lively discussion about academic freedom, she said. Herr said she considers it unusual for a department chairman to meet with a faculty member to discuss objections to an article. Faculty who disagree with an article should rebut it in print rather than complain to a dean or a department chairman, she said. "I think as a college we lose if we can't engage in an academic conversation," she said. But Herr said she doesn't know if anyone tried to block publication of the article. "If you talk to 14 people, you would get 14 different stories," she said. "It's like trying to put together Humpty Dumpty." Florez also said she doesn't know of an attempt to block publication of the paper. Nor does she consider it unusual for a department chairman to meet with a professor about an article. |