Let's go back to school on bilingual education

Massachusetts has been recognized as a leader in bilingual education since 1971, when it became the first in the nation to pass a law to help students with limited English skills.

The commonwealth has long been seen as a land of opportunity for immigrants, and it was fitting that its classrooms should be a land of opportunity for their children.

Under the commonwealth’s bilingual education law, a school district must provide transitional bilingual education whenever it has 20 or more students with limited English skills who speak the same language.

Today, decades after it was first put in place, there are growing concerns that bilingual education is a failure. In response to low scores on standardized tests, school districts such as Springfield and Holyoke with large bilingual enrollments are wondering whether this is the best way to teach children with limited English skills.

Kenneth A. Noonan, a California school superintendent, described his shock when he learned that Spanish-speaking students in his district showed dramatic progress in classes that immersed them in English right away. Noonan had been a longtime advocate for bilingual education, but no longer. “It’s very difficult to go from saying the world is flat to saying the world is round,” he told the Sunday Republican and Union-News in a three-part series on bilingual education that ended this week.

Educators in Springfield, Holyoke and elsewhere should closely examine the bilingual education programs in their districts and they should be prepared to abandon whatever falls short of the high standards that have made Massachusetts a pioneer in education. They will not fall off the edge of the earth if they eliminate a program.

However, educators must take pains to see that the state avoids what happened in California, which eliminated bilingual education via a ballot question. California voters, speaking in plain English, rejected bilingual education.

Voters in Massachusetts would likely do the same, and that’s a decision that should be made by educators. Legislation currently in the House is designed to head off a ballot initiative to scrap bilingual education, and educators should let lawmakers know whether they’ve done their homework.

Advocates of bilingual education make strong arguments on its behalf. Census 2000 figures show Hispanics with the highest growth rate of any demographic group in Western Massachusetts, underscoring the need for school districts to remain vigilant in evaluating their bilingual education programs.

Quality education should be the same in any language.



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