This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, K-12 education, postsecondary educational attainment, dropouts, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, environmental issues, Ethnic Studies at state and national levels. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin.
Good stuff. Consistent with experience and prior research I've read. Key quotes:
They found that children who continue to learn another
language after going to school and being immersed in English often show
signs of having a better working memory, an enhanced ability to learn
and improved concentration and attention.
From a practical perspective, speaking only English at home prevents
children from communicating effectively with their parents, according to
an article in Multilingual Living magazine.
Parents
who worry that speaking their native language at home will disrupt
their child's ability to learn English have nothing to fear.
The editors of a new social policy report from the Society for Research in Child Development
point out that in the United States, and other English-speaking
countries, immigrant parents respond to the negative stereotypes of
multilingual kids by speaking to their children what little English they
know rather than communicating fully in their mother tongue.
"As a result, many parents coming to the U.S. and the U.K. from other
countries inadvertently and tragically rob their children of vital
language-learning skills," wrote Allyssa McCabe, one of the researchers,
in Princeton University's Child and Family Blog. Researchers from Griffith University
examined the effect on Australian children of becoming literate in a
minority language, and concluded that bilinguilism provides many
advantages. They found that children who continue to learn another
language after going to school and being immersed in English often show
signs of having a better working memory, an enhanced ability to learn
and improved concentration and attention.
From a practical perspective, speaking only English at home prevents
children from communicating effectively with their parents, according to
an article in Multilingual Living magazine.
"I’ve said this before, but I reiterate that children must be able to
function/communicate effectively in their homes before they can
function/communicate out in the community, so the native language cannot
be stripped away, even for children with language delays," the article
continues.
The Social Policy Report emphasizes that building a strong language
foundation is more important than gaining proficiency only in the
majority language. Parents who don't speak English aren't able to
discuss topics in-depth with their children if the children only know
the majority language, and the children miss out on opportunities to
stretch their language comprehension and vocabulary.
"Parents who talk at length with their children regarding past
experiences have children who excel in narrating, and this may in turn
influence many other levels of language (e.g., vocabulary)," the report
says.
One of the main concerns of parents who aren't native English speakers is that their children will experience a language delay, according to an article by The Hanen Centre,
a Canadian nonprofit group that helps parents who have children with
speech problems. However, while children who learn a second language
usually experience a brief "silent period" as they adjust to the new
language, they do not fall behind their monolingual peers in terms of
language development.
"Bilingual children may say their first words slightly later than
monolingual children, but still within the normal age range (between
8-15 months). And when bilingual children start to produce short
sentences, they develop grammar along the same patterns and timelines as
children learning one language," the article continues.
The research shows that learning the principles of a language and
encouraging communication are important regardless of what language is
being spoken. According to an article on PBS.com,
children will use the foundations they've been taught in their parents'
language to understand complex principles in English. Learning their
native tongue alongside English will also help them appreciate both
sides of their multicultural identity.
Henry Cabluck/AP Images
Texas State Board of Education members Cynthia Dunbar, Barbara
Cargill, and Gail Lowe discussing curriculum standards, Austin, May
2008. Cargill, who was appointed chairwoman last year by Governor Rick
Perry, has expressed concern that there are now only ‘six true
conservative Christians on the board.’
“What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas when it comes to textbooks”
No
matter where you live, if your children go to public schools, the
textbooks they use were very possibly written under Texas influence. If
they graduated with a reflexive suspicion of the concept of separation
of church and state and an unexpected interest in the contributions of
the National Rifle Association to American history, you know who to
blame.
When it comes to meddling with school textbooks, Texas is
both similar to other states and totally different. It’s hardly the only
one that likes to fiddle around with the material its kids study in
class. The difference is due to size—4.8 million textbook-reading
schoolchildren as of 2011—and the peculiarities of its system of
government, in which the State Board of Education is selected in
elections that are practically devoid of voters, and wealthy donors can
chip in unlimited amounts of money to help their favorites win.
Those
favorites are not shrinking violets. In 2009, the nation watched in awe
as the state board worked on approving a new science curriculum under
the leadership of a chair who believed that “evolution is hooey.” In
2010, the subject was social studies and the teachers tasked with
drawing up course guidelines were supposed to work in consultation with
“experts” added on by the board, one of whom believed that the income
tax was contrary to the word of God in the scriptures.
Ever since
the 1960s, the selection of schoolbooks in Texas has been a target for
the religious right, which worried that schoolchildren were being
indoctrinated in godless secularism, and political conservatives who
felt that their kids were being given way too much propaganda about the
positive aspects of the federal government. Mel Gabler, an oil company
clerk, and his wife, Norma, who began their textbook crusade at their
kitchen table, were the leaders of the first wave. They brought their
supporters to State Board of Education meetings, unrolling their “scroll
of shame,” which listed objections they had to the content of the
current reading material. At times, the scroll was fifty-four feet long.
Products of the Texas school system have the Gablers to thank for the
fact that at one point the New Deal was axed from the timeline of
significant events in American history.
The Texas State Board of Education, which approves textbooks,
curriculum standards, and supplemental materials for the public schools,
has fifteen members from fifteen districts whose boundaries don’t
conform to congressional districts, or really anything whatsoever. They
run in staggered elections that are frequently held in off years, when
always-low Texas turnout is particularly abysmal. The advantage tends to
go to candidates with passionate, if narrow, bands of supporters,
particularly if those bands have rich backers. All of which—plus a
natural supply of political eccentrics—helps explain how Texas once had a
board member who believed that public schools are the tool of the
devil.
Texas originally acquired its power over the nation’s
textbook supply because it paid 100 percent of the cost of all public
school textbooks, as long as the books in question came from a very
short list of board-approved options. The selection process “was
grueling and tension-filled,” said Julie McGee, who worked at high
levels in several publishing houses before her retirement. “If you
didn’t get listed by the state, you got nothing.” On the other side of
the coin, David Anderson, who once sold textbooks in the state, said
that if a book made the list, even a fairly mediocre salesperson could
count on doing pretty well. The books on the Texas list were likely to
be mass-produced by the publisher in anticipation of those sales, so
other states liked to buy them and take advantage of the economies of
scale.
“What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas when it comes
to textbooks,” said Dan Quinn, who worked as an editor of social studies
textbooks before joining the Texas Freedom Network, which was founded
by Governor Ann Richards’s daughter, Cecile, to counter the religious
right.
As a market, the state was so big and influential that
national publishers tended to gear their books toward whatever it
wanted. Back in 1994, the board requested four hundred revisions in five
health textbooks it was considering. The publisher Holt, Rinehart and
Winston was the target for the most changes, including the deletion of
toll-free numbers for gay and lesbian groups and teenage suicide
prevention groups. Holt announced that it would pull its book out of the
Texas market rather than comply. (A decade later Holt was back with a
new book that eliminated the gay people.)
Given the high cost of
developing a single book, the risk of messing with Texas was high. “One
of the most expensive is science,” McGee said. “You have to hire medical
illustrators to do all the art.” When she was in the business, the cost
of producing a new biology book could run to $5 million. “The
investments are really great and it’s all on risk.”
Imagine the
feelings of the textbook companies—not to mention the science
teachers—when, in response to a big push from the Gablers, the state
board adopted a rule in 1974 that textbooks mentioning the theory of
evolution “should identify it as only one of several explanations of the
origins of humankind” and that those treating the subject extensively
“shall be edited, if necessary, to clarify that the treatment is
theoretical rather than factually verifiable.” The state attorney
general eventually issued an opinion that the board’s directive wouldn’t
stand up in court, and the rule was repealed. But the beat went on.
“Evolution is hooey”
Texas
is hardly the only state with small, fierce pressure groups trying to
dictate the content of textbooks. California, which has the most public
school students, tends to come at things from the opposite side,
pressing for more reflection of a crunchy granola worldview. “The word
in publishing was that for California you wanted no references to fast
food, and in Texas you wanted no references to sex,” Quinn told me. But
California’s system of textbook approval focuses only on books for the
lower grades. Professor Keith Erekson, director of the Center for
History Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso,
says that California often demands that its texts have a
Californiacentric central narrative that would not be suitable for
anywhere else, while “the Texas narrative can be used in other states.”
Publishers tend to keep information on who buys how much of what secret,
but Erekson said he’s seen estimates that the proportion of social
studies textbooks sold containing the basic Texas-approved narrative
range from about half to 80 percent.
Some extremely rich Texans
have gotten into the board of education election game, putting their
money at the disposal of conservative populists. No one has had more
impact than James Leininger, the San Antonio physician who has had an
intense interest in promoting school vouchers. He backed a group called
Texans for Governmental Integrity, which was particularly active in
state school board elections. Its most famous campaign was in 1994, when
it mailed flyers to voters’ homes in one district, showing a black man
kissing a white man and claiming that the Democratic incumbent had voted
for textbooks that promoted homosexuality. Another organization
Leininger has supported, the Heidi Group, sent out a prayer calendar in
1998, which unnervingly urged the right-to-life faithful to devote one
day to praying that a San Antonio doctor who performed abortions “will
come to see Jesus face to face.”
The chorus of objections to
textbook material mounted. Approval of environmental science books was
once held up over board concern that they were teaching children to be
more loyal to their planet than their country. As the board became a
national story and a national embarrassment, the state legislature
attempted to put a lid on the chaos in 1995 by restricting the board’s
oversight to “factual errors.” This made surprisingly little impact when
you had a group of deciders who believed that the theory of evolution,
global warming, and separation of church and state are all basically
errors of fact.
In 2009, when the science curriculum was once
again up for review, conservatives wanted to require that it cover the
“strengths and weaknesses” of the theory of evolution. In the end, they
settled for a face-saving requirement that students consider gaps in
fossil records and whether natural selection is enough to explain the
complexity of human cells. Don McLeroy, the board chairman who had
opined that “evolution is hooey,” told Washington Monthly that he felt the changes put Texas “light years ahead of any other state when it comes to challenging evolution!”
The
process by which the board came to its interesting decisions sometimes
seemed confused to the point of incoherence. Things would begin tidily,
with panels of teachers and expert consultants. Then the expert
consultants multiplied, frequently becoming less and less expert, until
the whole process ended in a rash of craziness. The science curriculum
was “this document that had been worked on for months,” Nathan Bernier, a
reporter for KUT in Austin, told National Public Radio.
Members
of the [teachers’ association] had been involved…. People with Ph.D.s
had been involved in developing these standards. And then at the last
second, there was this mysterious document that was shoved underneath
the hotel doors of some of the board members, and this document, at the
very last minute, wound up—large portions of it wound up making its way
into the guidelines.
In 2010, the board
launched itself into the equally contentious sea of the social studies
curriculum, and the teacher-dominated team tasked with writing the
standards was advised by a panel of “experts,” one of whom was a member
of the Minutemen militia. Another had argued that only white people were
responsible for advancing civil rights for minorities in America, since
“only majorities can expand political rights in America’s
constitutional society.”
“The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel,” McLeroy told Washington Monthly.
“Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for
saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last
twenty years because he lowered taxes.”
In their first year of
work on social studies, the board agreed that students should be
required to study the abandonment of the gold standard as a factor in
the decline in the value of the dollar. If the students were going to
study the McCarthy anti-Communist witch hunt of the 1950s, they were
also going to contemplate “how the later release of the Venona papers
confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in US government.”
The
changes often seemed to be thrown out haphazardly, and to pass or fail
on the basis of frequently opaque conclusions on the part of the swing
members. In 2010, the board tossed out books by the late Bill Martin
Jr., the author of Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, from a list of authors third-graders might want to study because someone mixed him up with Bill Martin, the author of Ethical Marxism.
The final product the board came up with called for a
curriculum that would make sure that students studying economic issues
of the late nineteenth century would not forget “the cattle industry
boom” and that when they turned to social issues like labor, growth of
the cities, and problems of immigrants they also take time to dwell on
“the philanthropy of industrialists.” When it came to the Middle Ages,
the board appeared to be down on any mention of the Crusades, an
enterprise that tends to reflect badly on the Christian side of
Christian–Islamic conflict. And when they got to the cold war era, the
board wanted to be sure students would be able to “explain how Arab
rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict.” Later,
they were supposed to study “Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent
use of terrorism by some of its adherents.” And that appeared to be
pretty much all young people in Texas were going to be required to know
about Arab nations and the world’s second-largest religion.
For
the most part, however, the board seemed determined just to sprinkle
stuff its members liked hither and yon, and eliminate words they found
objectionable in favor of more appealing ones. Reading through the
deletions and additions, it becomes clear that a majority of board
members hated the word “democratic,” for which they consistently
substituted “constitutional republic.” They also really disliked
“capitalism” (see rather: “free enterprise system”) and “natural law”
(“laws of nature and nature’s God”).
Study of the first part of
the twentieth century should include not only the Spanish-American War
and Theodore Roosevelt but also Sanford B. Dole, a Hawaiian lawyer and
son of missionaries. When teachers get to Clarence Darrow, Henry Ford,
and Charles Lindbergh, they’d also better not forget Glenn Curtiss, who
broke early motorcycle speed records. For the modern era, they needed to
study “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s,” including
Equal Rights Amendment opponent Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With
America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National
Rifle Association. And when students learn how to describe the impact of
cultural movements like “Tin Pan Alley, the Harlem Renaissance, the
Beat Generation, rock and roll,” the board demanded that they also look
into “country and western music.”
That last one actually seems totally fair.
The social studies
curriculum was perhaps the last hurrah for the extreme agenda that Don
McLeroy, the anti-evolution dentist, had championed. When the
discussions began, he could frequently rally a majority on the
fifteen-member panel, with the consistent support of people like Cynthia
Dunbar, who once wrote that sending children to public schools was like
“throwing them into the enemy’s flames, even as the children of Israel
threw their children to Moloch.” (She also once called Barack Obama a
terrorist sympathizer.) In 2011, Dunbar announced her retirement; she
had been commuting between Texas and Virginia, where she taught at Jerry
Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law. After McLeroy himself lost a
Republican primary to a candidate who believes in evolution, Barbara
Cargill, his successor as board chair, expressed concern that she was
left with only “six true conservative Christians on the board.”
“Readable? I’ve never heard a discussion of that”
These days the Texas board is far less powerful than in its heyday. But in a way, it’s more influential than ever.
The
state legislature has diluted the board’s ability to control what books
local districts pick. And the expanding Web-based curricula make it
easier for publishers to work around the preferences of any one state,
no matter how big. But students all around the country will be feeling
the effect of Texas on their textbooks for years, if not generations.
That’s because the school board’s most important contribution has not
been to make textbooks inaccurate. It’s been to help make them
unreadable.
“Readable? I’ve never heard a discussion of that,” said Julie McGee.
The
typical school textbook is composed of a general narrative sprinkled
liberally with “boxes”—sidebars presenting the biographies of prominent
individuals, and highlighting particular trends, social issues, or
historical events. As the textbook wars mounted, those boxes multiplied
like gerbils. It’s the ideal place to stash the guy who broke the
motorcycle speed record, or the cattle boom, or, perhaps, the gold
standard. (It’s also where, in bows to gender and racial equality,
mini-biographies of prominent women and minorities can be floated.) In
an era of computerized publishing, changing the boxes is easy. The
problem comes when the publisher has to change the narrative, something
many committees of experts may have labored over at the cost of millions
of dollars.
All the bickering and pressuring over the years has
caused publishers to shy away from using the kind of clear, lively
language that might raise hackles in one corner or another. The more
writers were constrained by confusing demands and conflicting requests,
the more they produced unreadable mush. Texas, you may not be surprised
to hear, has been particularly good at making things mushy. In 2011, the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank,
issued an evaluation of US history standards for public schools. The
institute was a longtime critic of curricula that insisted that
representatives of women and minorities be included in all parts of
American history. But the authors, Sheldon Stern and Jeremy Stern, really
hated what the Texas board had done. Besides incorporating “all the
familiar politically correct group categories,” the authors said,
the
document distorts or suppresses less triumphal or more nuanced aspects
of our past that the Board found politically unacceptable (slavery and
segregation are all but ignored, while religious influences are grossly
exaggerated). The resulting fusion is a confusing, unteachable
hodgepodge.
All around the country, teachers and students
are left to make their way through murky generalities as they struggle
through the swamps of boxes and lists. “Maybe the most striking thing
about current history textbooks is that they have lost a controlling
narrative,” wrote historian Russell Shorto.
And that’s the legacy.
Texas certainly didn’t single-handedly mess up American textbooks, but
its size, its purchasing heft, and the pickiness of the school board’s
endless demands—not to mention the board’s overall craziness—certainly
made it the trend leader. Texas has never managed to get evolution out
of American science textbooks. It’s been far more successful in helping
to make evolution—and history, and everything else—seem boring.
Albeit violent, images like these make for great theater and an opportunity to occupy and further militarize an already militarized border. They offer precious little in terms of real policy
solutions to address what really must be for our leaders an "inconvenient humanitarian
crisis" along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Note: Do check out my other post this morning on Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández' straightforward and cogent commentary in Washington this past week regarding his view of an appropriate placing of the onus for this human tragedy on our three countries: Honduras, Mexico and the United State, but especially the U.S. because we are the consumers of the drugs that have paved the way to utter destitution and unending violence in Mexico and Central America. On the topic of policy solutions, check out this letter at the link below was sent to
President Obama by a large group of immigration scholars. They provide a policy
framework on how to address the border crisis of unaccompanied minors with
children from Central America AND Mexico.
What can you do? Contact your congressional representatives, asking for
real policy solutions like these.
Scholars make recommendations to the President and
his administration
for Fair Treatment for Unaccompanied Central American Children
Category: Immigration Law Practice News | Published on: Monday, Jul. 14, 2014
Read this letter here: Professors and Researchers Letter Fairness for Central
American Children
A Customs and Border Protection vehicle
patrols near the Rio Grande along the U.S.-Mexico border near Mission,
Texas July 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Eric Gay/Pool
Related Topics
(Reuters) - Texas has launched a law enforcement surge to crack down on drug and human trafficking from Mexico
in a move that comes as the state is about to deploy as many as 1,000
National Guard troops to the border, officials said on Friday.
The surge, announced
last month and recently implemented, places more law enforcement
officials and resources on the border and will result in $1.3 million in
additional spending a week for the Texas Department of Public Safety,
officials from the department said, without offering a specific date
when it was launched.
Texas
Governor Rick Perry, seen as a potential Republican candidate in the
2016 presidential election, has blamed the Obama administration for not
doing enough to halt a surge in children from Central America crossing
the border. Perry said the influx of children has diverted U.S. Border
Patrol attention from cracking down on criminal syndicates.
"Mexican
cartels and criminal elements are taking advantage of this situation by
further exploiting these gaps along the border to commit heinous crimes
that will further their business," said Texas Department of Public
Safety spokesman Tom Vinger.
During
the nine months ending June 30, more than 57,000 children, many of them
from Central America, were detained at the U.S.-Mexico border, double
last year's count, according to U.S. government data.
The
White House and others have called the influx a humanitarian crisis.
The Obama administration has requested an additional $3.7 billion from
Congress to address the situation.
On
Thursday, the department took media out to the Rio Grande to show how
its fleet of gunboats is patrolling the waterway that divides Mexico and the United States.
“We
know the enemy, the cartel, on the other side they have cover, they
have concealment, they have the element of surprise. But what we enjoy
is superior training, superior tactics, speed and overwhelming
firepower," Department of Public Safety Lieutenant Charlie Goble told
reporters.
The National
Guard deployment that will begin within the next 28 days is expected to
cost about $12 million a month with the troops helping the state's
efforts to secure the border.
Perry
has won praise for his moves among Republicans and criticism from
Democrats who say he is spending millions on deployments that are more
about politics than border protection.
(Reporting by Marice Richter; Additional reporting provided by pool reports; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Beech)
This is a must-read statement by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández' clear and concise commentary made during his visit in Washington this past week. Selected quotes:
I would expect that that the electoral politics that
are playing right now will not affect a decision that has to do with
tending to a humanitarian crisis.
If you take a map of the municipalities where drugs pass, and overlay a
map of the municipalities where the kids are coming, they match
perfectly.
The advantage that you
have here—if you can call it an advantage—is that the violence has been
separated from the transit of drugs. That’s why for many officials and
public servants the drug problem in the United States is one of public
health. In Central America, the drug problem is life or death. That’s
why it’s important that the United States assume its responsibility.
If they are only investing in border security and not in the
source of the problem, in the genesis of the problem, then we will have
more of the same.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández came to Washington this
week with just about the toughest hand a world leader can play: His
tiny, impoverished country is both very dependent on what happens here
in the United States and more or less without leverage to shape it. The
only leverage, in fact, that Honduras and its small, equally troubled
neighbors Guatemala and El Salvador have found recently has come in the
form of small children, tens of thousands of whom have clambered over
the U.S. border this year in numbers so large and so unexpected they’ve
created an immigration crisis that, at the least, has succeeded in
placing Central America’s plague of drugs, violence and poverty on the
Washington agenda in a way it wouldn’t have been otherwise. That said,
it’s still not clear what, if anything, will come of the new state of
affairs—at least not when it comes to Honduras, so deadly that its city
of San Pedro Sula has been dubbed “the murder capital of the world” and
so politically troubled that Washington hardly blinked when its elected
president was toppled in a coup a few years back. Politico Magazine editor
Susan Glasser met with President Hernández Friday—and found a leader
deeply skeptical about the United States, from its refusal to
acknowledge the role our own demand for drugs has had in creating his
country’s cycle of violence, to our poor record of delivering
significant aid. Their edited conversation, translated from Spanish by Politico reporter Jose DelReal, follows.
***
Susan Glasser:
Mr. President, we’re in crisis mode here in Washington over this
question of the border. And in particular the plight of the children
coming to the United States unaccompanied has captured the public’s
attention. But the politics of this is, to be blunt, a disaster. There’s
no real sense that we have solutions, or even that President Obama can
win passage for his proposed $3.7 billion plan to deal with the crisis,
and I’m curious what you most want to say to the president and to the
politicians here in Washington. How much responsibility do they have for
this crisis?
President Hernández:
First, I would like to tell leaders in Washington: A Central America
with violence caused by drugs, a Central America without opportunities, a
Central America that doesn’t have space for economic growth at the rate
the population needs, will be an enormous cost and an enormous danger
to the United States. On the contrary, a Central America in peace, a
Central America that is prosperous, a Central American with economic
growth, a Central America where violence is controlled, is a great
investment for the United States. It is a great benefit, not a cost.
Now,
how to do that? That’s through shared responsibility. The United States
is responsible, Central America is responsible, and Mexico is
responsible. We have assumed our commitment [as in “responsibility”]
and our visit today requires talking with leaders in Washington and
structuring a plan dividing that responsibility. And I think that, until
now, what we’ve been talking about with congressional leaders is moving
on a good path. I would expect that that the electoral politics that
are playing right now will not affect a decision that has to do with
tending to a humanitarian crisis. When we talk about the children [on
the border], they are human beings. Human beings who are in a difficult
situation. In that sense, I would expect that the electoral debate
doesn’t affect [the response].
SG: There’s been a
big debate about who’s responsible for the influx of children coming
here: how much is a result of confusion around U.S. law. You think that
that does affect the children coming?
JH: That does.The problem is that that ambiguity, that lack of clarity, is used by coyotes [traffickers]
to perversely deceive the families that are here, telling them that
they can bring their kids and that their entry can be resolved legally
later. But another problem is that they deceive the people in Central
America, telling them, “take kids to the border and they’ll be received
and admitted,” when we know that’s not true.
That confusion is due to a lack of clarity, but there’s
another important cause in relation to Honduras. If you take a map of
the municipalities where drugs pass, and overlay a map of the
municipalities where the kids are coming, they match perfectly.
SG: San Pedro Sula [the Honduran city that is the murder capital of the world] is where most of the people are coming from.
JH: Exactly. But another side of it is the trafficking of dollars, payment for the drugs.
SG: Your
point is that the United States is responsible for creating the demand
for the drugs—and the violence that it has caused in the country—that we
have not accepted really our share of the responsibility for that.
JH: We
all share responsibility, from those who produce the drug to the
transit countries, but also the country that uses the drugs. And the
United States is the great consumer of the drugs. The advantage that you
have here—if you can call it an advantage—is that the violence has been
separated from the transit of drugs. That’s why for many officials and
public servants the drug problem in the United States is one of public
health. In Central America, the drug problem is life or death. That’s
why it’s important that the United States assume its responsibility.
They fixed the problem in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, separating
the violence from drug trafficking, or at least controlling the
violence.
SG: Your foreign minister was
interviewed on NPR and said that it’s “outrageous” that the United
States has spent so much money on border security and so little money
helping Honduras and the other countries of the Northern Triangle. Do
you agree with that? What should the United States be doing to assist
Honduras more directly?
JH: I return to my
point. A Central America at peace, with less drug violence, and with
opportunities, is a great investment for the United States. On the
contrary, if they are only investing in border security and not in the
source of the problem, in the genesis of the problem, then we will have
more of the same.
SG: And is that an outrage that we have our priorities so wrong?
JH: I
would say that it’s a miscalculation. Of course for us it’s
uncomfortable and frustrating knowing that our neighbor isn’t doing its
part.
SG: President Obama has proposed this 3.7
billion dollar package, and even then it’s not clear whether Congress
will actually approve that. Only a small amount, something like $300
million, is supposed to go directly to the countries in the region. Is
there some more concrete form of assistance that would stop this flood
of migrants?
JH: There was an initiative by the
name of CARSI (Central America Regional Security Initiative) that all
the countries of South America and the Caribbean see as a practical
joke. In Guatemala many years back it was said that there would be an
enormous investment in this same problem, the violence. Almost $3
billion. Practically nothing has arrived. And so we don’t want to be deceived again.
SG: So you’re skeptical based on history?
JH: Yes.
SG: Honduras
is a small country. It must be very painful for you to be the president
of what people call the murder capital of the world. Do you see any
prospect for not having that be the thing that you’re number one in?
JH: We
are working on that. And we are working hard. We have some
improvements. But we have a lot more to do. It is not enough. That is
the reason we need help. Help from the people who demand this
consumption of drugs.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry spent
Thursday afternoon with federal law enforcement officials along the Rio
Grande, after President Barack Obama declined to visit the border
during his trip to the state amid the surging immigration crisis. Perry traveled the river by Anzalduas Park, an area known for its high traffic of illegal immigrants coming into the United States, with a five-boat tour, law enforcement officials told TheBlaze.
Texas
Gov. Rick Perry with Texas Department of Public Safety law enforcement
officials on the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas, July 10, 2014. He visited
Anzalduas Park, a 96-acre park known for its high illegal immigration
traffic. (Photo courtesy of Perry’s office)
“The Texas boats looked badass,” one law enforcement officer told TheBlaze.
The boats had mounted machine guns and were accompanied by a helicopter to assist in the border tour, the officer said. Perry on Wednesday described his meeting with Obama as “constructive,”
but said he’s concerned the president will not move forward with
Perry’s suggestions to bring the National Guard to secure the border.
“You know, I was like, Mr. President, you can deal with this. You can
unilaterally direct the Department of Defense to put those troops on
the border,” Perry told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “The president needs
to understand that the single most important thing that he can do is put
the National Guard on the border to coordinate with local law
enforcement, with state law enforcement, with the Border Patrol.” Obama said he would be open to the National Guard suggestion, but that it was only a temporary fix. — Follow Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) on Twitter
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Please distribute widely.
The University of Texas at Austin, Center for Mexican American Studies
Tenure-Track Professor/Associate Professor in Social Sciences
Location: University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies invites applications for a tenured position at the rank of Associate or Full Professor to begin Fall 2015. We seek a Social Scientist with a heavy focus on the U.S. Latino/a populations and whose research agenda offers critical and comparative approaches to Central American, Caribbean, and South American Diasporas in the U.S. The successful candidate will provide intellectual leadership and vision within the proposed department, bridging the core concentrations in Language and Cognition, Policy, Cultural, and Borderlands Studies. The successful candidate will have a strong research agenda with specialization in one, or more of the following areas: mental health, immigration, youth cultures, demography, public health, language in contact, language ideologies, urban planning for interdisciplinary approaches to social justice issues in Latina/o Studies. The successful candidate will be expected to teach at all levels of our curriculum, to direct dissertations, MA reports, and honors theses, publish actively, and offer service to the Department, College and University. Qualifications
Applicants must hold a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Geography, Linguistics, Social Psychology, Sociology, Urban Planning, or a related field and must have demonstrated record of excellence in research and teaching. Application Instructions
To apply, send letter of interest, curriculum vitae, writing sample, and a list of three professional references to Dr. Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández at http://apply.interfolio.com/25175. Electronic submissions only, please. Review of applications will begin on October 1, 2014. Applications will continue to be accepted until the position is filled, however applications received after this date may not receive full consideration.
The University of Texas is an AA/EEO employer. A background check will be conducted on the successful candidate. Position funding is pending budgetary approval.
Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández Associate Professor of American Studies Associate Director, Center for Mexican American Studies LLILAS and CWGS, Faculty Affiliate University of Texas at Austin 2505 University Ave Stop B7100 Austin, TX 78712 (512) 232-6313
This is a worthwhile read because it provides a sense of how the lines are getting drawn in education politics. I agree that name calling is not/should not be acceptable at the same time that I agree with several of the comments within that we are indeed at war with the neoliberal agenda over what the majority of people adhere to in the U.S., namely, the democratic purposes of education—as opposed to corporate control. (Note: Time to read Benito Mussolini's writings on the ostensible virtues of the corporate state.)
What will it be? Control by the corporations with our hard-earned taxpayer dollars—or to the state to which we all have access as long as public schools remain truly public?
“Everyone rushes to their own corners,” Rotherham said. “It’s exasperating.”
Even
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has noticed. He opened a September
speech to the National Press Club by decrying “all the noise and
manufactured drama” of the education policy world. It was, he said, “an
alternative universe” — one pumped very full of hubris.
Each side, naturally, blames the other for starting the name calling. Few activists seem to see their own rhetoric as a problem.
“I don’t know that the tone is sharp — for me,” said Steve Perry, a
charter school principal in Connecticut who is a prominent voice in the
reform movement. “I can’t necessarily own that.”
Ten seconds further into the interview, Perry was blasting Ravitch
and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten for
promoting “racist” policies. Vanquishing them would be simple, he said,
“like throwing water on a witch.”
Ravitch, for her part, said she doesn’t consider herself a
“flamethrower” but added that she would not apologize for strong words.
“You can call it polarization, but it needs to happen,” Ravitch said.
“Otherwise, they will destroy public education.”
This piece by Juan Tejeda, should be read in tandem with the preceding post by Dr. Lydia French. Note, in particular, the link within to the Mexican-American studies high school curriculum that was developed by folks at the University of Texas Pan American.
-Angela
Colleagues & Camaradas:
I would like to thank all of you who sent an e-mail, or called in, to the Texas State Board of Education (TXSBOE) within the last couple of days in support of Mexican American and other Ethnic Studies for Texas schools. The TXSBOE pulled a fast one and voted yesterday, 12-1 (Board member Ruben Cortez from the Valley was the only one to vote against this) to "postpone" Proclamation 2016, which called for the development of textbooks and instructional materials for Mexican American, Native, African, and Asian American Studies for high school students and courses in Texas. This is a minor setback. We were never completely relying on the Republican-dominated TXSBOE to integrate Mexican American and other Ethnic Studies into Texas schools, even though it would behoove them and the state to do so. Of course we will hold all of the TXSBOE elected representatives accountable and they will not be able to "postpone" the inevitable: that all of our children deserve a quality education that reflects them positively and accurately in the textbooks and in the curriculum. Chicana/o children, who comprise more than half of all students in Texas schools, have a basic human and civil right to be taught and learn about their own history, literature, language, arts and culture. This will help them succeed in school and in life.
By the way, Mexican American Studies is not just for Mexican Americans, it is for all students. Our students need to learn about all of the different ethnic groups in the U.S., as well as the different nations, cultures, languages, religions, etc., from throughout the world, if they are going to be truly educated and become responsible citizens of the new world economy and global community. Maybe then we will be able to create a more just society and move towards peace amongst individuals, as amongst nations.
Our work continues and their have been many victories in integrating Mexican American/Chicana/o Studies into schools in Texas and across the U.S. A coalition of educators from the Rio Grande Valley at U.T. Pan Am, U.T. Brownsville, South Texas College with Trinidad Gonzales, along with representatives from various high schools, have developed a curriculum for a high school course in Mexican American History (see http://www.utpa.edu/mas-curriculum) and currently there are about 20 high schools across Texas that will be implementing a Mexican American History and/or a Humanities course this coming Fall, 2014. Educators and activists Tony Diaz in Houston, and Georgina Cecilia Perez in El Paso are working in the schools and their communities to integrate Mexican American Studies programs and courses.
The Puente Program has implemented Mexican American Studies at various colleges across Texas. Mexican American Studies, for the first time in Texas history, will be implemented into the Dual Credit Program for high school students this Fall, 2014 at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas, and other colleges, and I will be teaching a Humanities 1311/Mexican American Fine Arts Appreciation course at McCollum and KIPP College Preparatory High Schools. Other high schools are already expressing interest for the Spring, 2015 semester. We will also be integrating Mex Am Studies into the Early College Program for high school students in Spring, 2015; and this past March we established a Center for Mexican American Studies at Palo Alto College, the first in the Alamo Colleges district. There are many other individuals and organizations who are working for a more diverse, inclusive, and multicultural education for our students, and many victories across the state and the nation which the Texas State Board of Education cannot "postpone." Pa'lante.
Juan Tejeda Chair/National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies Tejas Foco Committee for Mexican American Studies Pre-K-12
Somos MAS/Mexican American Studies San Antonio, Tejas
“From a conservative point of view, you can’t have forms of forgiveness
without a secure border,” Mr. Paul said. “It doesn’t mean that we can’t
bring a lot of those people to our country, that we don’t have room for
them,” he added. “I think we frankly do need many of these people for
workers. But you can’t have a beacon of hope and you can’t have a
forgiveness plan without a secure border.”
Hoping against hope for the sake of the children that legislation gets passed through Congress before its recess in less than two weeks.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas: “We have a political imperative as Republicans to deal with this.”Credit
Doug Mills/The New York Times
WASHINGTON
— In 1996, when a surge in illegal immigration collided with the
overheated politics of a presidential election, Republicans demanded a
strict crackdown.
They
passed a measure in the House that would have allowed states to bar
children who were in the country illegally from public schools. Senator
Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, the party’s nominee for president,
called for limiting social services to immigrants in the country
illegally. Patrick J. Buchanan, one of Mr. Dole’s rivals, had promised
to build an electric fence along the border with Mexico.
When
Mr. Dole lost to Bill Clinton that year, he received just 21 percent of
the Hispanic vote — a record low for a Republican nominee — and the
party has never really recovered, even as the Hispanic vote has come to
represent 10 percent of the presidential electorate, doubling from 1996.
Today,
as a wave of unaccompanied minors fleeing Central America poses a new
crisis for Congress and the White House, Republicans are struggling to
calibrate a response that is both tough and humane, mindful of the need
to reconcile their freighted history with Hispanic voters and the
passions of a conservative base that sees any easing of immigration
rules as heresy.
Photo
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky: “You can’t have a forgiveness plan without a secure border.”Credit
Drew Angerer/European Pressphoto Agency
Some
senior Republicans are warning that the party cannot rebuild its
reputation with Hispanics if it is drawn into another emotional fight
over cracking down on migrants — especially when so many are young
children who are escaping extreme poverty and violence. But pleas for
compassion and even modest proposals for change are dividing the party,
and setting off intense resistance among conservative Republicans who
have resisted a broader overhaul of immigration.
Gestures of sympathy, like a trip to the border by Glenn Beck,
the conservative radio and television personality who has raised more
than $2 million to buy teddy bears, shoes and food for migrant children,
were met with scorn and derision. Some anti-immigrant activists
responded to news that the government was buying new clothing for the
detainees by organizing a campaign to mail them dirty underwear.
“We
can’t elect another Republican president in 2016 who gets 27 percent of
the Hispanic vote,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2
Republican in the Senate, referring to the percentage Mitt Romney won in
2012.
Mr.
Cornyn voted against the broad immigration overhaul last year but
introduced a compromise measure this week with a Texas Democrat from the
House, Representative Henry Cuellar, that would speed the deportation
of some children while allowing those who request asylum to stay as they
await a hearing.
Noting
the demographic shifts in his own state — where he observed, “It’s not
just people that look like me” — Mr. Cornyn added: “This is a challenge
for the country, and we need to solve it. And we have a political
imperative as Republicans to deal with this or else we will find
ourselves in a permanent minority status.”
The
cycle of failing to win over Hispanics can be traced in many respects
to 1994, when Gov. Pete Wilson of California, a Republican, faced a
difficult re-election fight and backed Proposition 187, which prohibited
the state from providing health care, public education or other social
services to immigrants in the country illegally, a measure that so
angered Hispanics it all but delivered the state to Democrats in
presidential elections ever since. In comparison, President Ronald
Reagan won 45 percent of Latino voters in California in 1984.
Looking
toward the next presidential election, other Republicans who once
opposed immigration overhaul are now talking about the need to deal with
the current crisis in a compassionate way. Senator Rand Paul,
Republican of Kentucky, who is considering a run for president and
voted against the immigration bill last year, said this week that he
considered himself “a moderate conservative who’s for immigration
reform” but wants to see border security improved.
“From
a conservative point of view, you can’t have forms of forgiveness
without a secure border,” Mr. Paul said. “It doesn’t mean that we can’t
bring a lot of those people to our country, that we don’t have room for
them,” he added. “I think we frankly do need many of these people for
workers. But you can’t have a beacon of hope and you can’t have a
forgiveness plan without a secure border.”
With
so many Republicans still opposed to sweeping policy changes, the
compromise they are proposing now is more a move to do no further harm
to their image with Hispanics than it is an effort to court votes. And a
split within the Democratic Party
over how to handle deportations poses a threat similar to the
Republican schism. Many liberals are outraged that Republicans are
demanding to scale back a 2008 law that granted more leniency to migrant
children from Central America in an effort to combat human trafficking.
And if enough Democrats refuse to go along with those changes, President Obama’s request for almost $4 billion to address the crisis could fall apart.
A critical question hanging over the Republican Party,
and indeed over any hopes of passing legislation through Congress
before its recess in two weeks, is whether even incremental immigration
changes can advance when many on the right are so opposed.
Mr.
Cornyn’s compromise already has drawn the ire of conservative activists
who want to see deportations accelerated. Some Republicans in Congress,
like his junior colleague from Texas, Senator Ted Cruz,
say the compromise does not go far enough. Mr. Cruz has tried to
persuade Republicans to nullify a directive handed down from Mr. Obama
to halt deportation proceedings against certain unauthorized immigrants
who came to the United States as children.
Other
Republicans have said that while Congress needs to revisit that
directive, doing so would stymie the chances of getting something
meaningful done now. “We need reform,” said Senator Susan Collins,
Republican of Maine. But doing so now, she added, “that’s a difficult
expectation.”
Republicans
have the chance to step in, Ms. Collins added, where the president’s
policies have failed. “It’s frustrating to me that the administration
has been so slow to respond,” she said, noting how apprehensions along
the border first doubled last year. “His answer, which is so often the
case, is more money, more money, more money.”
With
polls showing that large majorities of Americans disapprove of the way
Mr. Obama is handling the border crisis, Republicans say the opportunity
is theirs to squander.
Some
Republicans noted that the one time in the last six presidential
elections when their nominee won the popular vote was 2004, when George
W. Bush carried an estimated 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Senator
Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee who ran for president in 1996,
said that if Republicans are to win back the Senate and the White
House, they have to start passing more laws. Immigration overhaul, he
said, would be a start.
“In
order to have a Republican president, we have to demonstrate that we
can govern,” he said, adding that he was pleased to see how conservative
members of his party like Mr. Paul and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
have been speaking out on immigration overhaul. “Showing that we can fix
the immigration system is an essential part of showing we can govern.”
In my last post,
I included some actions people could take to encourage members of the
State Board of Education to vote to approve a Mexican American Studies
course and curriculum for the elementary and secondary levels in Texas.
In April 2014, the board compromised by passing a proclamation,
Proclamation 2016, that would support the development of ethnic studies
topics courses in social studies as well as the development of textbooks
and materials for African American, Native American, Asian American,
and Mexican American studies courses.
This week, the board has pulled a fast one by voting in favor of an
amendment proposed by member Thomas Ratliffe to "postpone" development
of those materials, a major blow and what many among those who organized
in support of enriching education in Tejas saw as sabotage
of the original proclamation and vote. As mi colega, Tony "El
Librotraficante" Diaz has phrased it, the State Board is "pulling the
rug" out from under Texas students. And many are comparing the acts of
the board to the ethnocentrism at work in Arizona in its banning of
ethnic studies in 2011.
Indeed, for me personally it's hard to divorce this decision from
racially-tinged ideological motives at work in the state. But I'm also
an impassioned Chicana advocate of Chican@ studies, with ethnically- and
racially-tinged ideological motives of my own. Pues, a veces la verdad
duele. So, I started to ask the question: what are the actual costs to
Texas and Texans of failing to provide a culturally relevant elementary
and secondary education to our students? I found many answers in a 2008 Workforce Report from Texas Comptroller, Susan Combs.
After a careful analysis of, by now well-known, demographic trends in
Texas, the report analyzes the impact of the absence of culturally
relevant education for young Texans, especially Latin@s and African
Americans, who tend to drop out of high school at higher rates. The
report finds:
. . . The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reported that
Hispanics and blacks accounted for about 54 percent of the population
aged 15 to 34 in Texas in 2007, but on 39 percent of the state's higher
education students in Fall 2007. One way to increase overall educational
attainment in Texas is to raise participation among Hispanic and black
students in postsecondary education, in both two-year and four-year
institutions. ("Demographic Change and Education" 13)
Indeed, these findings motivated the Closing the Gaps and
Achieving the Dream initiatives in the THECB, but the 2008 workforce
report goes on to remind readers that programs in higher education can
only go so far when those students needed to close achievement gaps and
become skilled members of the Texas workforce aren't even graduating
from high school. Although the report predicts that "[i]f the State Data
Center's 'high-growth' scenario plays out," which it has continued to
do at an even faster pace than predicted, "Hispanics will make up 58.7
percent of the state work force in 2040, more than twice their share in
2000" (14). Thus,
Because this portion of the state's population is growing rapidly, a
larger percentage of the Texas workforce -- 30.1 percent -- will have no
high school diploma by 2040, compared to 18.8 percent in 2000, if
current trends continue. The State Data Center also expects the
percentage of high school graduates in Texas to fall slightly, from 29
percent in 2000 to 28.7 percent by 2040. (14)
And here's the kicker, the part the SBOE should really be paying
attention to, the part that needs more attention and media coverage by
Texans, regardless of ideological motivation:
And if policy in Texas limits high school educational options, it
could exacerbate these trends, causing more students to lose interest
and drop out of school. (14, emphasis mine)
As we know, policy in Texas, with its emphasis on high-stakes testing,
reducing funding for schools while enlarging budgets for publishing
compaines and test-making factories, and diluting the cultural relevance
of the curriculum, has continued to limit high school options. But
again, what are the stakes of these policy/political moves? To
understand that, we have to recognize that all policy implications have a
human face and human desires. Thus, the report continues,
While students drop out for many different reasons, a recent survey for
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that nearly half of dropouts
surveyed (47 percent) said a major reason for dropping out was that classes were not interesting. (15, emphasis mine)
Educators in Mexican American Studies know this first-hand because we
hear time and again in our classes that students never knew of the
contributions of our people to American history, to Tejas history, to
the arts, to the medical professions, to the rich history of
entrepreneurs in this country. Once they see their lives reflected in
our classes, they become not just interested but invested. Why would the
school board want to delay such an important investment, which is not
just a human investment but an economic one? Once again, the 2008
Workforce report clarifies the impact that an impoverished education
will have on the future of Texas:
Unless Texas increases the average educational attainment levels of its
non-Anglo populations, our future labor force will be less educated than
today's. This means that workers will earn less and have fewer skills,
and business will find it increasingly difficult to hire and retain
qualified applicants. If the Texas economy is to continue to thrive,
this downward spiral of decreasing educational levels, a less educated
work force and fewer skilled job seekers must be reversed. (15-16)
Those of you who access the report and
read it more fully will clearly see that the calls in this report are
for the strengthening of workforce and career training programs, which
may make it appear as though I'm cherry-picking data. Quite the
contrary. Although I am one of those acknowledged in the report as an
advocate for academic programs in higher education in order to sustain
the civil society that undergirds and parallels the political economy,
what the report demonstrates through this data is that it really doesn't
matter whether students seek a workforce or academic route in
post-secondary education if they're not even receiving an enriching and
culturally relevant elementary and secondary education.
The question that the Texas electorate needs to be asking of SBOE members and policymakers at large is: why wouldn't we want to implement--and even fast-track--a culturally-relevant curriculum for Texas students?
As frequently happens in political decisions motivated by ideology and
ethnocentrism, cost was identified as the biggest factor in the decision
to postpone the approved ethnic studies materials. But we should all be
asking ourselves and our legislators, what are the bigger costs, not
just to students but to all tax-paying and voting Texans, of continuing
to impoverish our students' education?
The state of Texas is currently under fire for not providing a
quality education to students learning English, particularly at the
middle and high school levels. LULAC is suing the
state for failing to teach academic content and English to the 17
percent of public schools students who are labeled as English learners.
This begs the questions, what is the best approach to teaching
English learners who need to acquire grade level content knowledge and
English language skills?
States
should be in the business of adding to children’s linguistic toolkit and
not asking them to leave their best tool at home.
- Mary A. Stewart
California is reconsidering that question. Recently, a bill passed the State Senate that
will allow voters to decide if the option of bilingual education should
be returned to school districts. In 1997 the citizens of California
voted to virtually end bilingual education. Now, nearly 20 years later,
no amount of anti-immigrant sentiment can stand up to the vast amount of
scientific research, and a little common sense, that shows us that
bilingual is, quite simply, better.
However, not all bilingual education programs are equal.
In transitional programs, a student’s first language is viewed as a
crutch. The language will be used for some instruction for only a short
period of time, until the student can learn academic content in English.
The goal is to transition the student to an English-only learning
environment as soon as possible. These programs do not seek to fully
develop both languages, but do provide some native language support for a
limited amount of time.
However, in the dual language model of bilingual education, the goal
is full bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism. These programs
should last through at least fifth grade and preferably through high
school to produce the best outcome. This model is not about translating,
nor is it about merely learning another language. It is about learning
in another language for some subject matter and learning in one’s first
language for other subject matter. Teachers are trained to teach
language (i.e. English) and content (i.e. Math) at the same time. So
during the 45-minute block for math, students learn both.
Under the larger umbrella of dual language programs, there are two variations: one-way and two-way.
Two-way immersion, or two-way dual language is a program for
everyone. Native English-speaking children usually must start by
kindergarten and compromise half of the class. Roughly, the other half
of the class are children who speak the second language such as Spanish.
For part of the day or week, a group of students become the language
mentors for the others while learning language and content
simultaneously. Then, the reverse. In addition to language, these two
groups of students also learn multicultural skills from each other.
Another option for students learning English is a one-way immersion,
or one-way dual language, program where students of the same minority
language compromise the entire class such as native Spanish-speakers.
They are taught in two languages, their first language and English. One
potential drawback of this program is that the children miss out on
their best language teachers, other students. However, schools can fill
this void by doing some activities with classes of students who already
speak English fluently.
But what kind of bilingual is better?
Research shows that well-implemented bilingual programs that seek to
fully develop both languages are better for the academic success of
students learning English. They actually learn more English, have better
test scores, and achieve greater academic success in dual language
bilingual programs over English-only or transitional programs that view
the first language as a problem that needs to be dealt with quickly, by
being replaced by English.
Of course, we might think that children will not learn academic
skills in English if they are receiving a significant amount of their
instruction in another language. However, multiple studies have
found that over the long-term of language minority students’ tenure in
K-12 education, those in dual language programs outperform those in
English-only or transitional bilingual programs. Graduation rates are
higher, they perform better on tests in English, and they have greater
literacy skills in both languages.
Additionally, studies show that English-speaking children in
bilingual classes outperform their monolingual peers on English tests.
(And they can pass the same tests in another language!) Learning in two
languages does not prompt confusion, delays, or learning difficulties.
Research shows it is the contrary.
So from a research perspective, bilingual is better. From the
perspective of an educator, I have seen how dual language programs that
view language as a resource greatly benefit students learning English.
And I have seen far too often the damaging effects of years of schooling
that view one’s language as a problem or merely a crutch.
States should be in the business of adding to children’s linguistic
toolkit and not asking them to leave their best tool at home.
Mary
Amanda Stewart, Ph. D., is an Assistant Professor of bilingual
education at Texas Woman's University and a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project
at TWU. She was named an Emerging Leader in Education by Phi Delta
Kappa International Educator's Association. Connect with her
@drmandystewart.
the
state for failing to teach academic content and English to the 17
percent of public schools students who are labeled as English learners.