Attacks on Bilingual Education

Attacks on Bilingual Education

            The issue of bilingual education merits special attention because in recent years it has been under severe attacks. Few people understand the complex arguments for bilingual education, but instead allow themselves to be swayed by the dogmatism of self-interested politicians, conservatives, and nativists, who have their own agendas that have little or next to nothing do with the issue. Not surprisingly, they have conflated the issue to create disparate camps in bilingual education: one camp views bilingual education as threatening national unity because it opens up the question of the inclusion of linguistic, ethnic and culturally minority groups that differed from the dominant White population while the other camp interprets bilingual education as representing part of the American melting pot that celebrates diverse ethnicities, cultures, and languages. In the United States, usually bilingual education pertains to teaching language minority students in public schools from generally discriminated groups, such as Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, immigrants, and the poor in their native languages with the ultimate goal of mainstreaming them in English only classes over the years. In this current anti-immigrant and xenophobia climate, a recent immigration bill enacted in the past year has advocated for English only as the national language in the United States even though this country remains a multilingual and heterogeneous society. The consequences of making this nation an English only country would be profound, especially as it relates to the nation’s public schools, which would mean the elimination of bilingual programs, and instruction only in English. In recent years, as a result of this pedagogical issue being manipulated into a political controversy, bilingual education has come under attacks and is declining in the United States, at least in the public schools.

            The issue of bilingual education underscores many factors that need to be taken into account. Bilingual education has specific three goals: 1). to teach English through second language learning techniques; 2). to use the native language to provide an academic foundation; 3) to develop attitudes and socialization; and 4). to support literacy and formal development of the first language.  Scholars now take into consideration social, political, and economic contexts to explain the education of minority, immigrant students, looking at the effects of  institutional racism, social status, teacher expectations, curricular tracking, social isolation, and educational segregation that reflect the societal  discrimination in how students performed academically. Racism is reflected in the high placement of both language and minority students in special education classes, which have negative effects on them, only exacerbating language minority students (LEP) that perform below English speaking students. In fact, many language minority students drop out of schools at high rates. On the other hand, native language instruction tends to assist students to learn English, and bilingualism improves cognitive skills.  Language minority students need special attention, and successful intervention includes using the native language and culture by including its linguistic and cultural elements in the curriculum. Teachers need to encourage parents to get involved in their children’s learning processes which assure academic success of young language minority students at critical stages in their early development. Many school districts need qualified bilingual education teachers to work in classrooms.