Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

April 4, 2007 By Fausta

It’s time to ditch bilingual ed

Today at RCP Tony Blankley writes about Newt, Bilingual Ed and the PC Police (emphasis added):

Likewise today, Spanish is a magnificent language proudly spoken by people around the world. But in the United States, while the language remains beautiful and noble, those Hispanic-American children who are discouraged from learning English (by a bilingual policy that retards rather than advances the learning of English) are and will continue to be culturally and economically ghettoized by their inability to read, write and speak English.

Not that Blankley or Grinwrich are saying anything new. Thousands of Hispanics have been saying the same thing.

(BTW, there are no “Hispanics” outside the USA; once we all leave the continental USA we are Puerto Ricans, Nicaraguans, Uruguayans, or whatever. “Hispanic” is a construct, and I’m using right now because it’s expedient.)

Among the thousands of Hispanics who decry bilingual education is Herman Badillo, who actually introduced and was instrumental passing in Congress the bilingual voting and bilingual education programs. In his book, One Nation, One Standard, Badillo again and again realizes that

(page 65) Reexamining bilingual education, the Board of Education released a study concluding that efforts to educate tens of thousands of students in their native languages were flawed. The study found that students – even recent immigrants – who took most of their classes in English generally fared better academically than did students in bilingual programs, where little English was spoken.

(page 67) Bilingual education requires an average of four to seven years before students master english, but immersion programs accelerate that to as little as one year. Immersion’s benefits are most dramatic for immigrant children in the early grades.

Last year I pointed out

Take a look at the professions where English prevails, not only in the USA, but across the world:

engineering
computers
other technology
natural sciences
medicine
financial institutions such as banks, stock markets, commodities markets, and trade in government-issued securities
accounting
economics
international law

A small amount of research will show you that those are the highest paid occupations in the world.
… While Harry Reid bellyaches about job outsourcing to China, he should take a look at the high-skilled jobs being outsourced: I guarantee you that the best Chinese engineers with world-class skills, like engineers all around the world, learned English.

Harry should also try getting hold of his friendly tech support hotline person. The odds are the person is in India. India’s become a preferred place for outsourcing jobs because India’s an English-speaking country. Again, English pays:

India’s IT and outsourcing sector is currently worth about $22bn and expected to grow by 25% until the end of the decade, it said.

India is actively courting more investors, and its economy will continue to grow in those areas.

Tony Blankley continues, and finds the real reason for the PC outrage:

It is not hateful of Newt to point that out. It is hateful of ideological “civil rights” activists to try to intimidate any politician who would dare to liberate kids from the linguistic ghetto that serves the political power of these “civil rights” activists. Once these kids have mastered English and fully entered American life, they will no longer be vote fodder for the “civil rights” activists’ political ambitions.

The special interest ethnic activists prefer to have a new generation of clients, rather than a new generation of fully integrated American citizens. And what they fear is an honest and open debate on the bilingual teaching method.

Teaching in the native language (bilingual ed) combined with ballot measures and government and consumer information in the native language is establishing a dubious result today — as millions of immigrants are given just enough such linguistic help to let them function minimally in America (without learning English), but not enough to participate fully in our great country, economy and culture

Poor people move to this country to benefit from our riches. Denying them the instruction they need in English is, as Roger said, condemning those same immigrants to a life of poverty and bad jobs.

Every child, every adult, in our country needs to be fully literate in English. I can’t say it enough.

Prior posts
Badillo speaks out on education
Krauthammer on assimilation
Acculturation is not simply being bilingual
Digg!
technorati tags bilingual education, education

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Filed Under: bilingual ed, education, multiculturalism, politics, Republicans, technology

Comments

  1. March Hare says

    April 4, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    My mother was a school secretary. She had parents lie on the registration forms and say that English was the only language spoken at home because those parents did not want their children in bilingual classes. They knew.

    You can add airline pilot and air traffic controller to your list of jobs where English is mandatory. Ship captains, as well, need to be fairly fluent in English. In fact, the crews and the officers on today’s vessels are often from different countries and English is the ~only~ language they have in common!

  2. Mamacita says

    April 4, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    I emailed my response to you earlier because there is no way it could have fit into a comment.

    I’m wordy, what can I say?

  3. Obi's Sister says

    April 4, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    “Civil Rights” and “Special Interest” activists KNOW they will be out of a very lucretive job if the very same people they are “claiming” to help actually learn English and assimmilate into American society.

    While they are hollerin’ about “The Man keepin’ us down, keepin’ his boot on our necks…blah blah blah”, in reality THEY are “The Man”.

    It’s sad…

  4. Fausta says

    April 4, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    Mamacita, I never got the email!!
    Can you just post it here?

  5. Fausta says

    April 4, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    She had parents lie on the registration forms and say that English was the only language spoken at home because those parents did not want their children in bilingual classes. They knew.
    Here in Princeton middle-class parents who speak only Spanish at home make sure to send their kids to private nursery schools and preschools to make sure their kids are totally fluent in English before they go to the public school kindergarten interview.

    I know that because I have people asking me what preschools I recommend.

    in reality THEY are “The Man”.
    You’ve said it – There are hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted in bilingual ed and bilingual vote bureaucracies, programs, “educators”, and the like.

  6. JMK2006 says

    April 5, 2007 at 8:13 am

    BTW, there are no “Hispanics” outside the USA; once we all leave the continental USA we are Puerto Ricans, Nicaraguans, Uruguayans, or whatever. “Hispanic” is a construct, and I’m using right now because it’s expedient.

    Love your language about your language about language!

    The 1992 vice-presidential candidate of my old Marxist outfit, the New Alliance Party (now defunct), Maria Elizabeth Munoz, is (or was) a bilingual elementary school teacher in Los Angeles. This fact was featured prominently in the media packets, campaign literature, and other promotional materials that discussed her.

  7. Fausta says

    April 5, 2007 at 10:44 am

    JMK, yes, Marxists are particularly fond of bilingual ed because it’s another tool in perpetuating the culture of dependency and the victimization mindset.

  8. velvethammer says

    April 10, 2007 at 6:34 pm

    Say no to multi-culturization, and yes to assimilation.

    If one must be able to speak and understand English to become a citizen, then why do we have multi-lingual anything? Especially ballots?

    Although these stats, reflecting the demographics in LAUSD, are quite telling. http://tinyurl.com/23cv4x
    It is no shocker that bi-lingual education has taken hold.

    BTW Fausta Happy (Early) Blogiversary!

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