Keep option open in Massachusetts
Catherine Snow
Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
IN NOVEMBER Massachusetts voters could decide whether to eliminate bilingual
education in the state. The ballot question is one that has already been
accepted in California and Arizona. Should we follow their lead?
Three facts about bilingual education deserve note. First, the education reform
bill signed by President Bush in January commits federal support to bilingual
education programs for up to three years for any student with limited
proficiency in English. Second, Acting Governor Jane Swift has proposed
increasing local school district control over bilingual education. Finally, and
most important, parents of children with limited English proficiency already
have the right to choose mainstream English education over bilingual or other
specially designed programs.
Why, then, would anyone vote for a proposition to eliminate bilingual education
in Massachusetts?
There are several reasons why this would be a mistake. Such a proposition would
restrict Bay State school districts' access to federal funding for some of their
neediest students. It would limit school districts' capacity to design the
program best suited to their own populations of students, eliminating not only
bilingual programs but programs to teach English as a second language as well.
It would wrest from parents of limited English speakers a choice they now have.
And in the process it would restrict access for English-speaking children to
opportunities to learn a second language in dual immersion programs - which are
extremely popular and typically more effective than traditional foreign language
education.
Opponents of bilingual education say that the history of bilingual programs in
California demonstrates their ineffectiveness. By their logic, since only a tiny
percentage of children in bilingual programs ''graduated'' to mainstream English
programs each year, the programs were not teaching English.
However, proponents of Proposition 227 - the measure that banned bilingual
education in California - distorted the facts. They suggest that we should
expect 100 percent ''graduation rates'' for students in bilingual programs each
year. However, as President Bush's education policy confirms, a ''graduation
rate'' of 33 percent is a much more reasonable target.
Admittedly, the rate at which students in bilingual classes in California were
being reclassified as fully English proficient was much lower than 33 percent,
but so was the rate at which limited-English speakers in mainstream California
classes were being reclassified as English-proficient.
Right now, more than three years after the adoption of Proposition 227, the
California reclassification rate remains less than 10 percent. Children who
still speak and understand little English are sent, after one year of
''structured immersion,'' into classrooms where they receive no special help or
support for learning.
In Massachusetts, we are doing a much better job with our bilingual students.
Districts with bilingual education programs move 25-35 percent of their students
to mainstream classes each year. On average, Massachusetts children with limited
proficiency in English are reclassified as fluent in English after three to four
years in bilingual programs.
Still, even with these steady reclassification rates, no one is force-feeding
bilingual education to those who don't want it. School districts have the
freedom to design the best programs for their own students.
For instance, in districts where English language learners come from a variety
of language backgrounds, that program might be structured immersion, or English
as a Second Language classes. In other districts where many children come from a
single language background, a three-year, transitional bilingual program might
be the best alternative. In areas where many parents of English speakers want
their children to learn a second language, the district might implement a
two-way bilingual program.
Supporting the proposition to eliminate bilingual education across the state
would undercut local control in the name of giving parents a right they already
have. Parents who don't want their children in bilingual programs have always
had the choice of mainstream English education.
If an anti-bilingual education proposition passes, Massachusetts parents would
lose the option of choosing the best program for their children, and their
children would lose even more.
Catherine Snow is the Henry Lee Shattuck professor at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education.