Banishing Bilingualism

Within the next decade, 30-40 percent of current public school teachers in the United States will retire, opening up more than 700,000 teaching positions. This provides a great opportunity to develop energized young teachers who could revitalize public education. But it could also be an opening to mold a new generation of teachers who know only increasingly rigid standards, high-stakes testing, inflexible Eurocentric curriculum and English-only learning.

In California, the State Board of Education has chosen the latter path. Through directives, legislation and the redefinition of teacher credential programs, the word "bilingual" has been banished from the vocabulary of schooling in California, replaced by "English-language learning." Instruction in students' native language is against the law. Instead, non-English-speaking students are tested in English, which frequently guarantees their failure, since many do not even understand the instructions.

These state mandates ignore the most significant language-acquisition research findings of the past twenty years: Students learn a second language best when they can build academically upon their first language. The policies also ignore a 1998 report of student achievement (as measured in standardized test scores) that showed that English-language learners enrolled in bilingual programs in San Francisco and San Jose schools outperformed native-born English speakers in all content areas. These programs are now at risk of being dismantled in favor of a uniform system that suppresses many children's first language.

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