This piece came out in The Atlantic back in 2015. I like how it appropriately frames English-only education as a cost. Because children in the dual language classroom are less likely to disconnect from school, the likelihood of educational failure is lessened. Conversely, the research on dual language, as well as Ethnic Studies, I might add, overwhelmingly point to positive achievement and college-going behavior.
-Angela Valenzuela
In 1998, Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley millionaire and former gubernatorial candidate,
set out to abolish bilingual education in California. Fueled by an anti-immigrant climate,
Unz spearheaded a statewide campaign for Proposition 227, a highly controversial state i
nitiative that required schools to teach language-minority students almost entirely in English.
The ballot measure passed with 61 percent of the vote and made California the first state
to prohibit bilingual programs in schools, radically altering the education of hundreds of
thousands of children. Now almost 17 years later, while the political tensions remain, a reversal
is underway, powered largely by findings that bilingual instruction is best for English language learners.
Nationally, bilingual education has been rechristened “dual-language programs” and is gaining
fresh appeal. The templates of dual-language instruction vary—some programs transition students
into English-only after several years while others emphasize ongoing two-language immersion
at different ratios—but the common strand is an attempt to build literacy and proficiency in more
than one language. The approach is found to outperform traditional ESL, where lessons are
typically taught entirely in English. Research shows two-language instruction is linked to numerous
positive and long-term benefits, including stronger literacy skills, narrowing of achievement gaps,
and higher graduation rates. And the academic advantages of two-language programs even carry
over to an unexpected group: children who only speak English at home. Michigan State University
study of Texas elementary students in 2013 found “a substantial spillover effect”—higher math
and reading scores—for children from English-only homes who were enrolled in schools with
bilingual education programs.
Today, more California students are learning the three Rs in their native languages, aided by a provision
that allows public schools to bypass Proposition 227 if parents sign a waiver. According to the
state Department of Education, some 50,000 California children are receiving dual instruction in
English and another language, including Armenian, German, Mandarin, French, and Korean. This
is a small but growing segment of California’s 1.4 million English learners. The National Association
for Bilingual Education estimated in 2011 there were 2,000 dual-language programs in U.S. schools, a tenfold increase over the prior decade.
Beyond the politics are parents seeking a quality education for their children and the real-life costs
of English-only education. The goals of dual-language are closely related and intertwined—better
teaching models for non-English speakers, fostering cross-cultural understanding, and in special
settings reclaiming disappearing Native American languages—and the approach is earning praise.
With this growing momentum, schools like Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Los Angeles are
embracing the cultural and cognitive value of dual-language courses. As a charter school, Camino
Nuevo is exempt from California’s requirement for exclusive English education, allowing it to offer
dual-language instruction in Spanish and English from kindergarten through fifth grade. The
curriculum, which emphasizes culturally relevant literature, is showing signs of success.
Rachel Hazlehurst, the academy’s literacy and language specialist, sees an obvious link between
celebrating children’s ethnic roots and school performance.
“Students need to see themselves in the school in order to excel academically,” she says. “If there’s
a disconnect between students’ home identities … and what’s promoted by the school, students are
more likely to disconnect, disinvest, and experience educational failure.” The situation is worsened, Hazlehurst stresses, when the first language isn’t taught, hindering a child’s ability to communicate.
“[When] children lose their home language skills, we as educators have a serious problem …
fractured communities are created when families can no longer [talk] on a deep level about
issues that matter.”
While underscoring the importance of bilingual programs, Hazlehurst also acknowledges a
perennial challenge: the shortage of qualified bilingual teachers. Teachers certified to lead a
bilingual classroom are scarce and those with experience teaching in a bilingual program are
rarer. With bilingualism’s rising popularity and myriad gains—from stronger critical thinking
skills to higher lifetime earnings—many school districts around the country are finding it hard
to keep pace with rising demand.
New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., looked at communities that are
revamping how they serve language learners and found that even well-designed, well-resourced
efforts can suffer from hiring woes. In San Antonio, Texas, one of the cities profiled,
planning and executing a dual-language effort is complicated by the supply of available teachers,
with the analysis concluding, “Districts seeking to shift to a dual immersion model need to
begin with a human capital strategy.”
These challenges take on a special twist with Native American language-immersion programs,
which blend the language, culture, and traditions of indigenous peoples in dual instruction.
Decades of research show documented results for indigenous-language immersion—including
significant gains in achievement, family involvement, and community pride—for a population of
students with dismal education outcomes. America’s assimilation policy of educating Native
American children which was enforced through oppressive boarding schools that stripped
them of their tribal languages, cultures, and beliefs means many Native languages are now lost
or endangered. Last month, the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native
Education published a report calling on states and communities to “help ensure the preservation
and revitalization of Native languages,” emphasizing the “healing for students [that] can begin to
address a history of exclusion that began with mission and boarding schools and continues today.”
A Native American youth’s excerpt is profound:
“I would like to bring languages into our schools—our Native languages and many more;
it spreads our language around. Our languages are dying. One Native language just died away
because the last man who spoke it died.”
Charitie Ropati (Yup’ik), Student Anchorage Listening Session
Teresa L. McCarty, a professor of education and anthropology at UCLA and prominent
scholar on Indigenous language planning and policy, says the centuries-long history of
punishment in government schools for speaking tribal languages continues to pose
fundamental challenges, such as the lack of Native-speaking teachers for Native-language
immersion. “Often the teachers in these programs are second-language learners themselves,
so not only does a novice teacher need to learn a unique pedagogy and curriculum, she also
must master the language to a high level such that she can teach math, science, social studies,
language arts [and other subjects] through the Indigenous language,” McCarty explained.
“If you have ever seen English taught in Navajo, or Japanese taught in Hawaiian, you gain
a profound appreciation for the level of knowledge and skill possessed by these teachers.”
Additionally, Native teachers must scramble for appropriate learning tools: “There is
nothing … in the way of books and other teaching materials comparable to what is available
for mainstream English programs, or even Spanish-English bilingual education programs.
This means that teachers spend a lot of time adapting and creating their own materials,
including language and content-area assessments. All of this takes an enormous commitment
of time (as in many years), dedication to program goals, and human and material resources,”
McCarty said.
Federal legislation now working its way through Congress would provide $5 million in
grants annually for five years to tribes, tribal organizations, public schools, and other entities
to establish Native-language immersion classes from preschool through college—a much-
needed infusion of funds to educate Native learners. “Cultural knowledge and pride are
important in all children’s cognitive and social development,” McCarty said, adding that
self-esteem and self-efficacy are “key factors long known to support academic
engagement and success in school and life.”
This fact helps explain why some of the strongest proponents of dual-language programs
are youth themselves, whether current or former students who grasp the urgent need to
reclaim their identity, culture, and history as part of their education.
“We Native people are not trying to go back to ‘old ways,’” the musician Tonya Hill Yapavi,
a native of Yuma, Arizona, and member of the O'dam Nation, recently tweeted. “We went
backwards when we assimilated. We are trying to go forward in our ways again.”
MELINDA D. ANDERSON is an education journalist based in Washington, DC. She has
written for The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate, and more.?
No comments:
Post a Comment