[MCP] Bilingual Education

[Kathleen To]

The bilingual education discussion is a very highly charged one.  It
brings out many fears for some folks who think that being bilingual means
being non-American while benefiting as an American.  Remember the "English
Only" campaigns, trying to outlaw any official language except English? 
Although there is a strong body of research supporting the need to
maintain the home language while acquiring a second language, in order for
children to become academically fluent in English, many school staff and
others give out the message that in order to learn English, you have to
stop speaking your first language.  This is the "subtractive" argument vs.
the "additive" argument (you can add a languagage without losing your own
first).  

And look at the countries around the world which support two or more
languages in both school and society!  We talk much about being a global
society ourselves, but we do little to support this through language
acquisition.  Waiting until high school or college to learn a second
language means we have missed out on having years of language training
already.  But dual language programs are also controversial for many.  And
many of these fears are rooted in the racist fear of Spanish language
becoming more prevelant than English in the US in the years ahead.  You
only have to look back in American history to see that this fear of
English "disappearing" has been a constant theme throughout all the
decades of immigrant arrivals.  There was a time that people worried about
German, Italian, Yiddish, or other languages becoming too widespread.  But
in fact, many American schools in the early part of the 1900s were
conducted in two languages.

What is ironic is that while some folks are screaming about keeping our
schools English only, and outlawing bilingual education to help new
arrival children transition easier into our schools, many higher-income
parents pay a dear price to put their children in private schools which
teach French, German, or Spanish to their children in elementary school. 
With all the pressure of NCLB, school districts worry much about the ELL
children who cannot score high on tests conducted in English as well.  K.To