Bilingual Education in the U.S.; Part II

For this week's blog, I had intended to discuss good teaching as reflected in our readings for this week ("A Teacher's Awesome Power" by Mary Anne Raywid and "The Emotional Practice of Teaching" by Andy Hargreaves) as well as the difficult task of quantifying good teachers. However, I was side-tracked by some more articles that I found on the internet regarding Bilingual Education; "The Retrenchment of Bilingual Education in America 1968-2001: A Policy Feedback Approach," by Vanessa Perez, Columbia University and "The Comprehensive Guide to the New Title III" by James Crawford, a former Washington editor for Education Week. Perhaps I'll take up good teaching for next week's journal.

In her thesis, Ms. Perez states that instruction in other languages was common in American schools up until the 1880's. Programs in German, Polish and other languages were prevalent into the early 20th Century. However, support for these programs was waning within school districts and some ethnic groups. During WWI opposition strengthened and a number of states responded by implementing English only laws. The English-only factions prevailed until the 1960's with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968 The Bilingual Education Act was passed. It was renewed in 1974, 1978, 1984, 1994 and finally transformed in 2001.

Ms. Perez breaks the history of Bilingual Education in the U.S. into three phases:
1968 Policy Adoption
1974 Policy Expansion
1984 Policy Retrenchment

There were two main changing environments that led to the passage of the Bilingual Education Act in 1968. The first was the Social environment. As the Civil Rights movement addressed the treatment of blacks in this country, a by-product was to take a new look at the treatment of immigrants, especially of those who were non-English speaking. The second was the Political environment. Richard Nixon enjoyed popularity within the Hispanic American community. Nixon supported bilingual education in order to garner the support of Democratic Hispanic constituents in key electoral states.

The 1968 Act provided grants to states with high numbers of language minority students who were also economically disadvantaged. It did not, however, mandate specific programs. States were free to experiment with instructional approaches. Instruction in students' native languages was permitted.

In 1974, as discussed in my earlier blog on this topic, the decision in Lau v. Nichols (1974) and The Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974 strengthened the bilingual education law. It no longer pertained only to schools who received Federal funding. All school districts were to address the issues regarding non-English speaking students. In the latter 1970's the Carter Administration proposed the Lau Regulations which would strengthen bilingual education by setting up guidelines for states and school districts.

In 1984, Representative Scheuer who had advanced the passage of the 1968 Act said, "the record of English language programs for children with limited English proficiency was lacking. . . those English language programs were an utter failure in addressing drop out rates" (Perez 2008).

By 1984, the political climate had changed. Conservatives controlled the White House and the Senate. President Reagan believed that the education of linguistic minorities was a matter of state and local governments. The Reagan administration quickly took steps to turn all matters of education over to the states. The administration did away with the proposed Lau Regulations of the Carter Administration.

During the 1970's and 1980's, the rate of immigrants to the U.S. continued to increase and the U.S. continued to experience rapid population changes. Opposition to bilingual education emerged among school districts who claimed that they could not provide native language instruction as a result of increased language diversity in their districts. In 1979, for example, 53 languages were represented in Fairfax Country, Virginia (Perez 2008). An influx of students representing more than 80 languages entered the public school system in the 1980's. School districts sought to use federal funding for ESL programs instead of bilingual programs.

By 1987 12 states had adopted English as the official language. In states with large minority populations, English-only instruction was mandated.

As mentioned earlier, the Bilingual Education Act was renewed several times. The 1994 version included among its goals to develop English language skills and, "where possible, the native language skills" (James Crawford, 2002).

In 2001 Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act replaced the Bilingual Act of 1968. Title III comprises two parts: Part A which places great emphasis on English-only instruction and
Part B which allows for Bilingual education.

Scholars say that Title III was the "death, dismantling and repeal of the Bilingual Act" (Perez, 2008).

In "The Comprehensive Guide to the New Title III" by James Crawford, Mr. Crawford states that after 34 years of the Bilingual Act, with broad bi-partisan support, NCLB, as a part of a larger school reform measure, replaced Title VII with Title III . Conservative Republicans dropped an attempt to mandate English-only instruction while liberal Democrats made little effort to block the transformation of the Bilingual Education Act into the English Language Proficiency Act. And, according to Mr. Crawford, not a single member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus voted against the legislation at any stage of the process. Whereas the 1994 version of the Bilingual Act allowed for programs that developed native language skills, the English Language Proficiency Act stressed English language skills only.

Title III increased spending by 50% over Title VII. But Title VII served only a small fraction of the 4.4 million ELL students nationwide through a competitive grant process. Under the new Title III, districts would now automatically receive funding based on enrollment of ELL and immigrant students. Mr. Crawford (2002) explained that this will have the effect of thinly stretching the increased funds.

I have found this discussion to be incredibly fascinating. (Thank you, Jane for letting me take off in this direction.) The discussion of Bilingual Education is broken into two parts: Bilingual Education refers to programs which allows the use of native languages in instruction and ESL refers to programs that do not.

When many people discuss bilingual instruction, they are referring to the benefits of all American students, especially those who only speak English, in learning a second, third language. The Bilingual Education Act, however, dealt with native language instruction with the intent of aiding immigrant children develop English language skills.

Over the years a pattern has emerged in this country (and I'm assuming that a similar pattern could be viewed in other countries as well regarding their immigrant populations); where immigrant populations have grown, so has the anti-immigrant movement. The states with large minority populations are the states that have pushed for English-only instruction. This is due partly to bias and the perceived threat to national identity that immigrants potentially pose. However, it is also due to the insurmountable, unaffordable task of bilingual education in more than 80 different languages.

There was an interesting article in Parade Magazine of last Sunday's Seattle Times (February 22, 2009). This artcile talked about a parternship between the nonprofit National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) and the Toyota Family Literacy Program. The Toyota program was created in 2003 and serves 75 elementary schools in 25 communities across the U.S. The program aims to help immigrant parents of ELL students learn English. ESL classes take place on an elementary school campus in separate classrooms and then the parent joins his/her children for subject classes.

This idea is intriguing. The inability of adults in immigrant homes to speak English has been documented as a cause of poverty in the U.S. and a factor in a student's failure in our schools. If this is the case, then teaching English to immigrant parents seems an obvious response. And teaching these parents in our public schools alongside their children seems like a good place to start.

References:

Vanessa Perez, Columbia University
“The Retrenchment of Bilingual Education in America 1968-2001: A Policy Feedback Approach”
(2008)
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/6/8/8/6/pages268864/p268864-1.php

James Crawford writer for Education Week
(2002)
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCrawford/T7obit.htm