House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., made headlines during the past week, kick-starting the bandwagon call for the complete abolishment of bilingual education programs. It’s an appealing siren song, made even more so by the fraud and incompetence of far too many bilingual education programs.
But to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water would be an oversimplification that only some talk radio hosts and their higher-order brethren, bumper stickers, could do injustice to.
Yes, the English language is the all-important glue that binds the nation and its citizenry. And yes, most children should be mainstreamed and immersed in the country’s tongue as rapidly as possible. And yes, most children, given the opportunity, learn the language far sooner than many academics give them credit for. Most parents, in fact, ought to be demanding that their children be immersed in English.
But it’s a more complex problem. Many older children, for example, are charged with the task of learning a new language and difficult mathematical and scientific concepts at the same time.
And to the oversimplified charge that all bilingual education programs are a sham, that’s just not talking straight.
In Texas, in fact, there are a number of exemplary bilingual programs that the Texas Education Agency has identified and is studying further. (The mere mention of the TEA will have some critics flapping their tongues.)
The schools, including Garcia Elementary in the Houston Independent School District, have at least a 40 percent student population with limited English proficiency, had no students exempted from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills exam, had at least 70 percent of their students pass that exam and were rated either “recognized” or “exemplary” in the state’s accountability program.
The point is, there are some instances where bilingual education is needed and works. To make a blanket indictment is neither honest nor fair to the children who stand to benefit.
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