Bilingual education has failed

it's time to stop the experiment

As a parent, I want my five children to know English well and to learn other languages. Our schools should be doing just that.

The issue isn’t really about “bilingual education” versus “English only” in discussions of Proposition 227, the “English for the Children” initiative. That’s political rhetoric. Bilingual education seldom produces truly bilingual, biliterate students. And no one wants their children to speak only English.

The issue is about what works for our students: Which method of instruction gives them high levels of academic achievement and enables them to pursue their goals?

Several years ago, our district’s bilingual director told a parent group that what our schools were doing was not working. At a California Association for Bilingual Education conference in Anaheim, I heard many people say the same thing. They were then recommending “late exit,” keeping children in Spanish through junior high school rather than stopping Spanish instruction at the fourth grade. This, of course, was an unworkable solution due to the shortage of bilingual teachers.

Our district’s recent extensive bilingual education study also claimed that bilingual education did not deliver because the original expectations were based on false data. It also documented that it took students about 10 years (ninth grade) to be reclassified as fluent English speakers. That was the average!

Others, of course, never fully become fluent or literate in English.

Elementary teachers love bilingual education; the children are learning in Spanish and seem to be doing well. They say it has “heart. ” But for junior high teachers it is a different story. Most of the teachers at one of our junior highs signed a petition requesting the governor to discontinue bilingual education.

Students come out of elementary schools with a second or third grade English reading ability. Teachers now have to work much too hard and hope their students do not get discouraged as they try to catch up. As our bilingual study pointed out, students are often demoralized, losing academically, as they are trying to transition from Spanish to English. How can you learn fifth-grade U.S. history if you can’t read the book?

A district bilingual study in 1987 pointed out that more than 84 percent of the students in these programs were two or more years behind and that it was unlikely that they would ever catch up.

Despair sets in. And when students turn their backs on education, a world of gangs, crime, drugs and violence awaits them. This is when we see the “bleeding hearts. “

We see their faces when they come before us during the expulsion process. Santa Ana has 10 percent of the population of Orange County, yet we account for over 50 percent of the expulsion cases.

Could it be related to the fact that we teach this population differently, crippling students with such low reading levels?

Most everyone acknowledges that what we’ve done does not work.

And whatever pockets of success someone may point to certainly do not merit its great expense. So what do we do?

Some say, “We just need to fix it, explore more programs, try new theories. We just need more money. We just need to train more teachers. We just need to import teachers from Spain and Mexico.

Give us more time and we’ll get it right. ” Absolutely not. We have had enough experimentation. Our children are not guinea pigs, some kind of laboratory animals, to be used to promote a theory from academia. The American taxpayers do not have money for these grand experiments. We cannot wait another 20 years to see if a different approach works. Student’s futures are at stake. We must do what has been successful. And immersion works.

When I was six, I came to the United States speaking only Spanish and learned English quickly in the schools. Everyone knows you have to hear and read a language to learn it. Asian families want their children to learn in English because they expect their children to go to college.

If parents want the system to continue to experiment with their own children, they will have that choice through the Unz initiative’s parental waiver process. After they’ve proved it works with their children, we’ll see if it’s better than immersion. It’s time to give our Latino students success.

Prop. 227 is local control at its best. The people are finally heard. Parents have a choice. School board members are free from the pressure of teacher’s unions and an oppressive state bureaucracy that has demanded compliance without even law. The initiative process should never be a vehicle for making educational policy. But when the Legislature and the educational establishment fail to represent the people, the initiative process gives us a final recourse. It was designed for such a time as this.

Under this initiative students would enter English classes after a year of sheltered immersion. This will be easily done, especially when children are young with limited vocabularies. The wording in the initiative _ “normally a year” _ allows students to be reevaluated and given more help if special needs arise. Be assured teachers will not be sued for giving directions in Spanish. Even a separate class in Spanish (which I recommend) can be held. The initiative says only that the school day must be “overwhelmingly in English. “

The only reason a teacher or board members can be sued is if you deny a student the right to an English education. And you should be sued.

No one should be allowed to offend any one of these little ones.

Ms. Avila is a member of the Santa Ana school district board of education.



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