It Will Take Initiative to End the Failures of Bilingual Teaching

By: Gloria Matta Tuchman
Orange County Register, Commentary
Sunday, September 7, 1997

Bilingual education deserves an "F" for failure to teach English. It is one of California's most devastating scatter-shot, fiscally bloated, and ill-advised failures. While the uncoordinated and unregulated bilingual education budget has doubled in the past decade, test scores and English literacy for English learners has fallen.

California's English learners have a "civil right" to have the public schools help them to learn English according to the 1974 Equal Educational Opportunities Act. It did not mandate primary language instruction. Parents should have a right to accept or reject such services.

California's bilingual education program not only falls short of the mark for children, it is an administrative nightmare and a cash cow for self-serving interests or motives. The primary goal of bilingual education presumably is to teach English. Bilingual education in practice delays the learning of English.

What is "bilingual education?" In the majority of California schools, bilingual education is a program that utilizes the student's primary language for initial skills development until the child has met mastery criteria for transition to English reading and to skills development through English instruction. Much or all instruction, textbooks, and teaching materials are in the child's primary language.

One can get as many meanings and interpretations of the phrase "bilingual education" and its process as the number of people one is willing to ask. The many definitions can be attributed to individual and personal motives or interests which in turn determine the individual stand on the issue. Among these interests or motives are financial reward, employment, textbook companies, researchers, universities, attorneys, and more. They all have a stake in maintaining the current system, whether it works or not.

But I can tell you from firsthand experience since 1964 teaching English learners that bilingual education is not the solution. I feel that primary language teaching leads to frustration and confusion. Many pupils are often as handicapped in the knowledge of their so-called mother tongue as they are in English. The time and effort devoted to bilingual instruction decreases the time and effort given to English and other subjects. The result: English learners increasingly are left farther and farther behind their peer group and age level.

What are the solutions being considered? Two proposals in the works are a ballot initiative, called English for the Children, and a bill, SB6, sponsored by Dede Alpert, Democrat of Coronado, and Brooks Firestone, Republican of Los Olivos.

I am not in favor of SB6 as presently written. Under it, the state's school districts likely will find themselves in the same position that they have been in since the sunset of the now-expired bilingual education law in 1987.

SB6 will reinstate the permanent legal basis for bilingual education. Schools will face rather unsubtle pressure from the state Department of Education to comply with the Department's bias for primary language instruction.

Among other things, this bill deletes a provision authorizing an Independent Legislative Analyst's report to the Legislature about the bill's effectiveness and authorizes the State Department of Education to contract for a comprehensive evalution of the approaches and outcomes of instructional services for English Learners. Isn't that a little like "the fox guarding the henhouse?"

I helped work on the original version of SB6 with Assemblyman Firestone many amendments ago, but recently turned my attention to help writing the English for the Children initiative, proposed for the June 1998 ballot. This measure - which would require that children be taught English as soon as they begin school, unless their parents object - to me seems most likely to end this failed system once and for all.

Those who formulated the initiative include immigrant parents who want to see their children achieve financial stability and social integration into California, concerned teachers and community activists. The campaign and its author, 1994 gubernatorial candidate Ron Unz, hold to some basic principles:

• First, the earlier a child learns a new language, the better. This initiative creates parental choice by allowing parents to keep their children in bilingual education programs that actually work well. If parents can provide some indication that such a program will help their child achieve English literacy and benefit their child's overall education, then a waiver is available.

• While saving approximately $400 million of tax money, the initiative allocates $50 million for 10 years to fund adult English-literacy programs for immigrants and non-immigrants alike who agree to help tutor children in English.

• Federal law requires that students who are not native language speakers have the right to extra instructional help. The initiative provides this help through what is called a sheltered English immersion program as well as through the parental waivers.

In 10 months' time, if the English for the Children initiative qualifies for the ballot, the bilingual education system could very well be on its way to becoming a thing of the past in California schools - to the good fortune of parents, and our children.