FREE ESSAY ON BI-LINGUAL EDUCATION

BI-LINGUAL EDUCATION

Bilingual Education
Education is very important. There use to be a time when you didn't have to go to school.
When it was only important for men to have an education. Times have really changed. Now
it is crucial for everyone in our society to have an education. Survival is the main
reason: a cohesive society is another. Our schools today need to keep Bilingual education
as a tool for teaching: not only for the sake of our society but also for the sense of
our culture. 
Bilingual education in our schools is crucial: but still there is talk about banning the
use of foreign language in the instruction of our young children. We have to work to
change that kind of attitude. We have to proceed from the assumption that bilingual 
education is a sound educational proposition for all children and that it addresses the
needs of all the constituencies of education. Now more than ever the words of Thomas
Jefferson ring with special meaning: in 1977, in a letter to his nephew, Jefferson said:
"Bestow great attention on Spanish and endeavor to acquire an accurate knowledge of it.
Our future connections with Spain and Spanish America will render that language a
valuable acquisition. The ancient history of that part of America, too, is written in
that language". (qt. in A Relook '66). 
Hispanic leaders should plan an initiative to help Hispanic youths do better in school. 
It's a coming-together as a community to deal with a very pressing issue. The
organizations should be composed of public officials, 
students, educators, administrators, and business people and should try to determine the

biggest problems facing Latino students in their community. 
These groups need to work together to develop a statewide agenda. Hispanic students,
according to some studies, lag behind other students in classroom performance; have the
highest dropout rate of any ethnic group in the country; and, according to federal data,
are less likely to pursue higher learning(Tucson '66). We as a society, need to have a
school system that prepares our students for higher education if that is their choice.
Society needs to work together to change the educational process for Latino students.
Consider these numbers, which we drew from As A Relook at Tucson '66 states" Minority
groups are being shortchanged by more than 200,000 teaching jobs in the public 
elementary and secondary schools of the nation. In 1972, the enrollment of the nation's
public 
schools was 44.6 million. As a relook at Tucson '66 states, the number of English
speakers in the Western Hemisphere is only slightly larger than that of Spanish speakers.
By the year 2000 the number of Spanish speakers will be far greater than the number of
english speakers. Statistics indicate that the United States is now one of the major
Spanish-American countries. One statistical example: If the figures on illegal Mexican
aliens are correct, that means that every year the United States adds another city the
size of Albuquerque and Tucson combined. Or, put it another way, it adds another state
larger in population than Wyoming and Alaska combined"(a relook at Tucson 14). 
The policy of most governments toward bilingualism in the home is and long has been one
of neglect. A few countries actively encourage it, especially if the second
(non-community) language is the more important language in the country or in the world,
or if the minority (community) language is the language of a group given special
consideration under the law. Many countries, which have recently been colonies, for
example, encourage their young people to learn the language of their former Mother
Country, because bilingualism of this type is important in international trade and
politics. However, we could find castles full of research and still very little is being
done in public 
schools to improve and enforce bilingual education. We have to use the research being
conducted about bilingual education and improve bilingual education. Some public schools
want to stop bilingual education, saying that it's detrimental to students but they don't
put any consideration in improving it, or educating themselves on the needs of not just
Latino but all children. All bilingual children deserve further discussion on the issues
of culture, immigration, ethnicity and adjustment.
Truly bilingual workers, proficient in English and a second language, will be more
valuable and marketable as global trade continues to grow. With these facts in mind, some
states are launching a visionary effort to develop a dual-language work force. The idea
is to convince local school districts to offer a second 
language beginning at the prekindergarten level and encourage employers to help adults
learn another language. 
Spanish is an obvious second-language choice for many because of the rapid growth of
Hispanics in our country. The relationship with Mexico and Latin America will grow
stronger if businesses take advantage of their position and opportunity. More than
22,500,000 of our countries population already speaks Spanish
http://www.docuweb.ca/SiSpain/english/language/worldwid.html). However, officials cite a
growing demand for more Spanish-speaking professionals. 
The future work force would be better positioned to build international connections if
most professionals had a second language. Students would gain a better understanding of
the world by learning another language. 
Pursuing a dual-language work force is a sound idea that will boost the countries'
economy and personally benefit its individuals. 
We as a society should encourage local school districts, businesses and civic-minded
groups to embrace the effort. We must try to build a society were human diversity is
promoted and not destroyed. 
The key to program improvement is not in finding a program that works for all children
and all localities, or finding a program component (such as native language instruction)
that works as some sort of magic bullet, but rather finding a set of program components
that works for the children in the community of interest, given the goals, and resources
of that community. The best bilingual education programs include all of these
characteristics: ESL instruction, 
sheltered subject matter teaching, and instruction in the first language.
Non-English-speaking children initially receive core instruction in the primary language
along with ESL instruction. As children grow more proficient in English, they learn
subjects using more contextualized language (math and science) in sheltered classes
taught in 
English, and eventually in mainstream classes. In this way, the sheltered classes 
function as a bridge between instruction in the first language and in the mainstream. In
advanced levels, the only subjects done in the first language are those demanding the
most abstract use of language (social studies and language arts). Once full mainstreaming
is complete, advanced first language development is available as an option. Gradual exit
plans, such as these, avoid problems associated with 
exiting children too early (before the English they encounter is comprehensible) and
provide instruction in the first language where it is most needed. These plans also allow
children to have the advantages of advanced first language development. A common argument
against bilingual education is the observation that many people have succeeded without
it. This has 
certainly happened. In these cases, however, the successful person got plenty of
comprehensible input in the second language, and in many cases had a de facto bilingual
education program. For example, Rodriguez (1982) and de la Pe?a (1991) are often cited as
counter-evidence to bilingual education. 
Rodriguez (1982) tells us that he succeeded in school without a special program and
acquired a very high level of English literacy. He had two 
crucial advantages, however, that most limited- English-proficient (LEP) children do not
have. First, he grew up in an English-speaking neighborhood in Sacramento, California,
and thus got a great deal of informal comprehensible input from classmates. Many LEP
children today encounter English only at school; they live in neighborhoods where Spanish
prevails. In addition, Rodriguez became a voracious reader, which helped him acquire
academic language. Most LEP children have little access to books.
Random assignment to treatment and control groups, as in medical experiments, is the
highest quality research design because it increases the confidence in the conclusion
that any differences between the groups after a period of treatment can be attributed to
that 
treatment. The results from the five studies in which subjects were randomly assigned to
bilingual and control programs favor bilingual education even more strongly. The
estimated benefit of bilingual programs on all test scores in English according to these
studies with random assignment is .26 of a standard deviation. The positive effect on
reading scores is .41 of a standard deviation among the studies with random assignment.
And the improvement in scores measured in Spanish is .92 of a standard deviation in the
studies with random assignment to treatment and control groups. All of these estimated
benefits of bilingual education from studies with random assignment are extremely
unlikely to have been produced by chance. The fact that the studies 
of bilingual programs with random assignment, the highest quality research design, have
even stronger results greatly increases the confidence in the conclusion that bilingual
education positively affects educational attainment. 
In sum, the NRC report finds that on average, bilingual education programs are more
effective than English-only programs. However, there are many other important factors
that influence student outcomes. There is much more work left 
to do by the schools if we are to enable LEP students to achieve at high academic levels.
Improvement would have to focus on teachers, teaching, academic content and standards, 
accountability, school-wide leadership, program integration, parent involvement-and
effective use of the native language to assure high level 
and meaningful learning for all students from the time they enter school. Proposition 227
removes an important tool -- use of the native language -- from the hands of educators it
would only serve to make even more difficult the challenges of school improvement. 
A society with no education cannot compete in the modern world. We as a society need to
fight to keep Bilingual education as a teaching tool in the schooling system.