In another sign of California’s inexorable slide into the Pacific, voters junked their state’s 30-year-old bilingual education experiment, while the arguments still rage: whether children taught in their native languages never really learn English, or students thrown into English-only classes simply fall behind.

The 60 percent vote for Proposition 227, which limits students to a year of special English classes before placing them in the mainstream, was immediately contested in federal court. Teachers who vow to resist can be sued for refusing to teach overwhelmingly in English.

Instead of focusing on just some students, however, why not let dual-language instruction benefit them all? That’s what several Palm Beach County and other Florida public schools are doing right, in showing ways to teach this state’s own numerous non-English-speaking students.

”There really is no point of comparison between us and bilingual education in California,” said Anna Meehan, director of international students for the district. ”We have an intensive English program,” but more important, ”all students benefit. All learn to speak a second language.”

At Gove Elementary in Belle Glade, where nearly half the 850 students speak little English and more than half are Hispanic, kids get half their lessons, from math to social studies, in English and the other half in Spanish. The specialized instruction now reaches through third grade; the school will add fourth grade next year and fifth the year after.

At North Grade Elementary in Lake Worth, kindergartners last year were taught half the day in Spanish and half in English. With a $ 250,000-a-year federal grant for five years, the school plans to have many speaking and reading in both languages by the time they leave fifth grade.

Boca Raton Elementary, recognizing a good thing, next year will begin teaching kindergarten through second-grade students in Spanish for 40 minutes four days a week and 80 minutes one day a week.

Learning another language tends to enhance a child’s English ability – and later, employability. So it’s good that school officials are working on a progression through middle school. While California argues over whether its bilingual sun is setting, this district, like others, should continue expanding the light of language in students’ minds.



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