When Mexican-American students and parents at the Ninth Street School in East Los Angeles, boycotted bilingual classes two years ago, it was because they felt that bilingual classes were not preparing students to function successfully in an English speaking society. One Mexican-American parent noted that proficiency in English was needed to “keep the children from winding up working in sweatshops or selling tamales on the corner.” Another voiced concern that children were kept in the bilingual clases “year after year”, and in fact some parents had already removed their children from bilingual classes and placed them in English classes.

The school administrators eventually acquiesced to the demands of the parents and students and began testing and reclassifying students able to function in regular classes, and the bilingual program was restructured so that more English was provided to the students. Thus was sparked the birth of the Unz initiative, or Proposition 227, that was passed overwhelmingly by California voters last year. This initiative stipulated that limited English students could be in a bilingual class for one year, but thereafter would be in regular classes unless parents got a special waiver for bilingual instruction.

During my near 30 years of working as an educator in Oakland Public Schools I had the opportunity to work in several elementary and middle school bilingual classes. During those years, many teachers, including myself, participated in training to get certification as Sheltered English Teachers for bilingual students. This certification allowed teachers who did not speak a foreign language to teach limited English students through the use of special curriculum.

In Oakland, most bilingual classes contain Mexican-American students who speak Spanish, however the district has never been able to acquire enough bilingual teachers of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Minh, and other east Asia languages so these students are often placed in Spanish bilingual or sheltered English classes even though the teacher does not speak the language of the students. African American and other ethnic minority students are often assigned to these classes in order for the class to meet the minimum number of students to qualify for special funding.

The problems pointed out by the East Los Angeles parents and students about the shortcomings of the bilingual program reflect some of the same questions and complaints by non-bilingual teachers and parents in other districts.

Here are several of those concerns:

Segregation. Most bilingual and African-American children live and play together in integrated neighborhoods, yet they part company upon entering the school. Racial strife at some schools has been attributed to this lack of interaction between ethnic groups for extensive parts of the school day.

Bilingual students are not tested regularly (as mandated by the bilingual program) in order to reclassify students into regular English classes.

Many students in bilingual classes score higher on English language reading and math tests than students in regular classes, yet they remain in bilingual classes. Regular testing that would classify many students as fluent English speakers (FEP) happens only sporaodically.

Bilingual students are rarely retained or ??? classes for learning handicapped even after several years of low scholastic achievement. The tentative list of retainees that must be turned in to school principals near the end of the school year rarely contain Spanish surnames, and in fact tends to be overwhelmingly African-American. A look into any “special learning” classes will show hardly any ethnic group other than African-American. Hence, bilingual teachers are perceived of as being overly protective of their students by failing to refer them to special classes where there are few, if any, bilingual students.

Teachers of bilingual students often refer to their students as Spanish, rather than Spanish-speaking, even though most of the flatland schools have never had students from Spain, and the bulk of bilingual students are Mexican Americans.

African American students who are enrolled in Spanish bilingual classes participate in many activities that teach Mexican history: El Dia del Muerto, cinco De Mayo, constructing Mexican flags, for example. However, whether they receive equal curriculum about their own history is questionable.

There have been no published reports of comprehensive studies that determine whether teaching in dual languages slows the progress of students who speak only English and are in bilingual classes.

Many parents of bilingual students continue to speak only their native language at home although most students in bilingual classes are in fact born in this country, and have been exposed to five to six years of hearing, if not speaking, the English language by the time they begin school.

These concerns have never been fully addressed to the satisfaction of parents and teachers.



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