Bravery is Foreign to Pols Who Boost Bilingual Education

THE New York City school system continues to resemble an ugly bomb crater. And yet, the liberal education establishment steadfastly clings to a policy of disaster.

I talk specifically about the sacred cow of the Albany Legislature: bilingual education in public schools.

This ancient idiocy comes into sharp focus this week with stunning news from California, where bilingualism was banished two years ago in a referendum under Proposition 227.

And now the results.

Since bilingual education was voted out, students in heavily Latino school districts have improved reading and mathematics in dramatic numbers.

Released test scores give a sample of second-graders in formally bilingual schools as improving 9 percent in English and 14 percent in mathematics.

The test scores, reported in some detail in the normally liberal New York Times, show that even the most ardent supporters of bilingualism are now converts to English-only education.

In the story, the Times appears to cautiously endorse the education system turning its back on bilingual education.

And yet, in this state, to preach against bilingual education is akin to heresy.

As the Post’s state editor, Fred Dicker, puts it: “The politicians of both parties are fearful of bringing up English-only education in case they get accused of racism.

“The politicians have no stomach for opening the lid on the explosive Pandora’s box that would banish bilingual education.”

To condemn for racism anyone who would eliminate bilingual education is to damn history.

Bilingual education was introduced in the ’60s and, in fairness, was set up by people with good intent.

But in the end, it became a hobbyhorse of the liberals who have made the New York City school system the laughingstock of anyone who has an IQ in the range of room temperature.

Subsequent generations of Hispanic kids have gone through a school system that has perpetrated an ailment where kids don’t speak proper Spanish and don’t speak proper English.

Hence, that terrible word Spanglish – a hybrid mishmash that is neither spoken nor written in boardrooms, news rooms or chat rooms.

And that, to me, is racist – robbing a Hispanic kid of the opportunity to aspire to the top jobs.

In the early 1900s, immigrants from foreign-speaking lands could only hope that their kids would speak English so they could doff their father’s blue collar to put on a white collar.

Hopefully, these dramatic results from California will get the Albany Legislature moving.

Gov. Pataki has always claimed that education was his prime goal in taking over stewardship of the Empire State.

It is not racist to give kids a shot at better jobs.

If anyone believes that English-only is an attempt to stamp out the Spanish language in New York, they should be committed.

If anything, Spanish should be aggressively taught in public schools to Hispanic kids, Anglo kids and African-American kids.

You can’t have a better gift in a competitive job market than to be perfectly bilingual.

There seems only one politician who has got the guts in the Legislature here to mount the charge – State Sen. John Marchi (R-S.I.), who continually gets ignored while trying to make bilingual education a bad memory.

Marchi knows the value of being bilingual. He speaks Italian fluently, but he did not get educated in bilingualism, which makes a kid’s language skills neither fish nor fowl.

In Miami, the school population is 50 percent Cuban, yet the governor of that state, Jeb Bush, who speaks Spanish fluently, wouldn’t hear of bilingual education.

In some private schools, kindergarten kids who are “English-learners” are schooled in bilingualism, and that softens the landing of a child who is yet to enter the public-school system – and that’s not a bad idea.

But, after that, it should be English only – with a strong emphasis on kids retaining the language of their origin and its culture, too.

In Paris, tens of thousands of kids come from North Africa. Their language of origin is Arabic, but they are steadfastly taught in French while retaining links to their Arabic origin.

Brazil is a nation of Portuguese-speaking children, with thousands of immigrants from nearby Spanish-speaking countries. Bilingualism is not even a consideration.

It is not racist to want your kids to get a better job and be bilingual – but bilingual education only condemns and confuses those who are exposed to it.



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