History Isn't Friendly to Staunch Foe of Bilingual Education

The proposed initiative banning bilingual education rests on a dangerously simplistic interpretation of America’s melting-pot past. History underscores the futility of either-or solutions to the challenge of educating immigrant children and the foolishness of relying on isolated case studies or anecdotes to prove whether bilingual or English-only education works best. The best thing that could happen to the bilingual debate would be to depoliticize it. Unfortunately, the proposed initiative threatens to do just the opposite.

Critics of bilingual education like to say: Immigrants once used public schools to assimilate. Forced to “sink or swim” in English, their children swam. But today, separatists and their liberal supporters want to preserve native cultures, something bilingual education (mostly Spanish) can facilitate. This is dangerous, because the possibility of returning to Mexico allows immigrants to “keep a foot in both camps,” an option unavailable to previous newcomers. High Latino dropout rates prove the program a failure.

Yet, today’s Latinos are less likely to return “home” than were European immigrants at the beginning of the century: One-third of those who arrived from 1908-1924 eventually left America.

?Furthermore, the idea that previous immigrants succeeded in school by learning English is a fantasy. During the last great immigration wave (1880-1915), few Americans succeeded in school, immigrants least of all. While 54% of New York’s native-born 8th graders made it to the 9th grade in 1908, only 34% of the foreign-born did so. A federal commission found that 80% of urban, native-born, white 7th graders graduated, but only 58% of Italian children did. By 1931, only 11% of Italians graduated high school (compared with 40% overall).

This native-immigrant achievement gap was bigger than today’s. Educating Italian immigrant children was so challenging that New York established the nation’s first special-education program to manage it. In 1921, half of all learning-disabled children in New York special-ed classes were Italian.

Nor did Jews succeed with sink-or-swim methods. In 1910, there were 191,000 Jewish children in New York schools; only 6,000 were in high school, and the overwhelming majority of them dropped out.

True, immersion in English-only schools has been effective for European immigrants–but success usually takes three generations. For some, like Greek Americans, it can take four. Compare the dropout rate of Jewish students in 1910 with that of Mexican immigrants today: 74% of Mexico-born youths, 15-17 years old, remain in school; more than 70% of Latino immigrants who came here before their sophomore year in high school went on to graduate. Earlier immersion programs for Jewish or Italian students teach us nothing that would help improve today’s immigrant education.

?Claims that bilingual education and assimilation are incompatible are undercut as well by the experience of previous immigrants. Instruction in Spanish was common a century ago in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona; in Louisiana, schools taught in French long after the Louisiana Purchase to preserve the Creole culture.

?European immigrants, supported by educators, demanded native-language instruction to protect the ethnic identity of their children, for whom the pull of American culture seemed dangerous. St. Louis school superintendent William Harris began bilingual-bicultural programs in the 1870s, because “traditions, customs and habits cannot be suddenly removed without disastrously weakening the personality.” Harris’ first public “kindergarten” was so called because it was taught solely in German; English instruction began in later grades.

Like today, many immigrant parents recognized that children would more likely succeed if native-language instruction reinforced the culture at home. But others felt their children’s assimilation required teaching in English only.

New York’s first bilingual public school, established in 1837, prepared German-speaking children for regular schools. They were supposed to learn in German for 12 months only. But teachers insisted that more than a year was necessary. After New York Gov. William Seward endorsed native-language instruction for immigrant children, Italian parents demanded a similar school.

In Pennsylvania, an 1852 regulation specified that “if any considerable number of Germans desire to have children instructed in their own language, their wishes should be gratified.” In 1870, a public school in Denver was taught entirely in German. Texas had seven Czech-language public schools. An 1872 Oregon law permitted native-language public schools to be established whenever 100 voters petitioned for them. Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Nebraska and Minnesota all had bilingual education. But the anti-immigrant hysteria following World War I ended such programs.

These programs varied. In Ohio, lower grades were bilingual, but in grades 5-8, native-language instruction was limited to an hour daily. Baltimore schools offered art and music in German, but upper-grade history and science also had to be taught in English. Milwaukee schools were required to teach English as a foreign language.

A desire to segregate Chinese children shaped California’s programs. San Francisco established a Chinese-language school in 1885; segregated Indian, Mongolian and Japanese schools followed. But German, Italian and French immigrants received native-language instruction in regular public schools.

Support for bilingual education was rarely unanimous. Indeed, this year’s proposed initiative is the latest in a series of attempts to politicize the issue. Harris’ St. Louis’ program was dismantled after redistricting split the German vote and Irish politicians took over the city’s school board in 1888.

Nor are today’s English-only advocates in the GOP pioneers in exploiting some immigrant parents’ opposition to bilingual education in order to bolster their case. In 1889, Wisconsin’s Republican governor, William D. Hoard, sponsored legislation to ban German instruction, claiming immigrant support. One typical newspaper story featured “a German in Sheboygan County . . . who sent his children away to school” to learn English. The father complained that it was essential for his children, “who expected to remain citizens of this country,” to learn English. But journalists and Republican politicians apparently misjudged immigrant sentiments. Enraged German Americans, who had previously supported Republicans, mobilized to elect Democrats, who promptly repealed the anti-bilingual law. An almost identical series of events took place in Illinois.

America’s melting pot has never been endangered by efforts to preserve native languages and culture, and bilingual instruction has never interfered with assimilation. Today, after 20 years of bilingual education, Spanish-speaking children continue to assimilate. From 1972 to 1995, despite rapidly accelerating immigration, Latino high school completion crept up from 66% to 70%. Fifty-four percent of Latino graduates now enroll in college, up from 45%. (It’s 64% for non-Latino whites). And the number of Latino high school grads who complete college rose from 11% to 16% (for non-Latino whites, it’s now 34%).

Perhaps we would do better if we had less bilingual education. But perhaps not. One thing, however, is for sure: An all-or-nothing referendum that pivots on simplistic half-truths is a poor way to resolve the issue.



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