Author:
Greg Johns - Coastal
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Date Posted: 17:09:19 02/09/02 Sat
In reply to:
Kristin Schnarr (Inland Cohort)
's message, "Lessow-Hurley: Two-Way Bilingual Education/Dual Language Instruction" on 16:56:26 02/05/02 Tue
>I too did a research paper on biingual education, but mine was for my 350 class. I found much of the same information that you did and reached the same positive conclusions about the inherent value of bilingual education that you did ... until I started reading essays and reports witten from a practical perspective. Here are a few thoughts you may consider. English is rapidly becoming the dominant language of the world. Whether you agree that it should be or not is beside the point. It is, and will continue to be as long as the US continues as the most pwerful political, economic and military country on earth. In countries that are bilingual, more often than not, the bilingualism is the native language plus English. It is that way out of the necessity to function in an increasingly English-speaking world. As intellecually and socially desirable as it may be, here in the US there there is no "compelling need" to be bilingual. This lack of a compelling need is what governs the political realities of education. Basically, the public is not going to shell out huge amounts of money to the schools for something that doesn't address a compelling need. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the issue, in 1994 the CTA (California Teachers Association) projected a shorfall of 20,000 bilingual teachers relative to existing known requirements. On top of that, one-way bilingual education, just to teach English to NEP students, grew in cost nation-wide from $1.2 million in 1969 to $7.0 billion in 1997. The number of NEP students only grew from 134 thousand to 2.6 million in that same period. That is an expenditure per student growth ratio of about 300:1. It is unfortunate, but the positive aspects of bilingual education have been tainted in the minds of the public to the point that a poorly written referendun like Prop 227 could pass with over 60% approval including nearly 80% from Latino voters. In her book, Judith Lessow-Hurley commits the same error I have seen over and over again from the educational elite. They focus exclusively on what should be done under idealistic circumstance rather what can be done under existing conditions. I hope this helps you understand why the situation with bilingual education is as messed up as it is.
>I have been familiar with two-way bilingual education
>ever since I did a research paper on it in EDUC 364.
>Once I completed the research for the paper, I could
>never understand why more people were not supportive
>of this form of education. After reading the Judith
>Lessow-Hurley chapters, I still do not understand the
>lack of support. Based upon the research I have done,
>and the arguments Lessow-Hurley makes, this form of
>education appears to be a win-win situation. The
>student who complete these programs are bilingual and
>bileterate. I would love to be both of these, and am
>disapointed that I did not have the opporunity to be
>involved in a dual language program at an early age.
>I know that there are challenges that come with this
>type of program (hiring enough teachers who are
>qualified to teach both languages, for one example),
>but the positive end results seem to far outweigh the
>challenges. Besides, what education program does not
>face challenges?
>The fact that two-way bilingual education/dual
>language programs are becoming more popular in the
>private school sector implies that there are some
>people who do recognize the advantages of a society of
>people who are bilingual. The point that
>Lessow-Hurley makes about the acceptance of this type
>of program in private schools, however, is a thought
>provoking one: "The value placed on bilinugalism by
>those who can afford to pay for private schooling
>raises an important issue: Why is dual language
>instruction desirable for a socioecononimic elite but
>undesirable for minority language groups? Perhaps
>experimental two-way enrichment programs will change
>attitudes about bilingualism and dual language
>instruction" (Lessow-Hurley 19). I hope that the
>latter is the case, rather than the former. I don't
>know about the rest of you, but it is a very
>discouraging and frustrating thought that our
>socioeconomic elite are given the advantage of being
>bilingual, while some minority language groups are not
>even given equal opportunity to education in one
>language.
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