Bilingual Education Should Be Restored in California

As a volunteer tutor at St. Vincent School, Los Angeles, I met a student named Eric, a fifth grader and immigrant from Mexico. Eric spoke very little English, but he was expected to answer fifth grade homework in English. This task proved difficult for him without the help of classmates, who thankfully knew some Spanish and helped him make sense of his homework. Eric was very capable of answering his Math homework once he understood the directions, demonstrating his intelligence but lack of English knowledge. The amount of time he had spent trying to understand English directions slowed down his progress in comparison to his classmates and made his concentration waver. His self-esteem suffered, because he sometimes misinterpreted his teacher's instructions and answered the wrong math problems, only to have to start over when his classmate pointed out the error.

Eric's struggle with English is common to many English language learners, a growing population in the United States. Fifty percent of children in United States schools are predicted to belong to language minority homes by the year 2020 (Berliner & Biddle, 1995). Hispanics, in particular, are the largest group of ELLs in the United States. Over a million Spanish-speaking ELLs in California have been expected to thrive in English immersion programs, where they are either thrown into English mainstream classrooms or enrolled in English classes with curriculum designed for young children learning the language (California Department of Education, 2006). According to the California Department of Education, about half of Spanish-speaking ELLs are not fluent-English-proficient, which means that they do not have good working knowledge of the language. English immersion programs are ineffective for Spanish-speaking ELLs, as is demonstrated by the 50 percent of Hispanic or Latino students who fail the California High School Exit Exam and the gap of almost 200 points between the average SAT scores of Hispanic and White students (California Department of Education, 2006).

Spanish-speaking ELLs, the largest growing population of ELLs in the United States, need to improve their English reading ability, because they tend to score in the lowest percentiles of achievement tests, which they must pass in order to graduate from high school and obtain well-paying jobs. Without good English reading skills, this population not only underachieves, but it also fails to assimilate into American society, because of the language barrier, becoming structurally excluded and politically powerless. Bilingual education, currently banned in California by citizens' initiative, should be restored to solve these problems of inequality by giving ELL students the means to succeed in academics and the working world, like their English-speaking peers.

Bilingual Education should be restored in California, because it answers the issues the schools and districts face, such as how to effectively transition students from Spanish to English; how much instruction should be done in Spanish; how to improve student reading in the second language; and which strategies work best for the English language. Research in Educational Psychology shows that BE is more effective in teaching Spanish-speaking ELLs to read than the current English immersion program. BE programs are more beneficial to ELLs, because they allow students to acquire background knowledge and study skills necessary for schoolwork in English while developing skills in a second language, which contribute to the first language's development by transference. BE also forms a multilingual competence, which is a vital resource in this time of globalization and increased immigration. English immersion is ineffective for Spanish-speaking ELLs, because the students are largely from low-class families, with uneducated parents, who do not speak English and work excessively, giving them limited time and ability to be involved with their children's studies.

BE is a means for bringing equality of opportunity for Mexican Americans and other language minority groups that are being excluded from political, social, economic and educational mainstream. Nine years after the introduction of BE in the United States, popular complaints about BE were that the government had not demonstrated any improvement in students' achievement, in their ability to learn English, or in their attitudes towards school, but the reason that BE failed to improve students' reading ability during its first implementation was primarily because of administrative problems (San Miguel, 2004). For instance, not all the students who needed to be in the bilingual program were enrolled in it (San Miguel, 2004). Some members of the government frowned upon BE as a means for minority empowerment, but it really is a solution for underachievement, structural exclusion, assimilation and relative political powerlessness (San Miguel, 2004).

Proposition 227, the bill that banned BE in California and replaced it with English immersion, was not the solution to school and district concerns for ELLs, because it did little to answer the issues the schools and districts faced: how to effectively transition students from Spanish to English; how much instruction should be done in Spanish; how to improve student reading in the second language; and which strategies work best for English language development. Achievement test scores improved two years after the BE ban, but the immersion program was only one among many factors contributing to the nature of literacy instruction (Stritikus, 2002). Teachers played a larger role in influencing the test scores, and they did not uniformly teach in English alone (Stritikus, 2002). My experience tutoring Eric further proves this point; when I had trouble communicating an idea to him in English, his teacher willingly intervened by translating the lesson to him in Spanish, straying from the English immersion standards. The lack of teacher cooperation to English immersion requirements shows that the teachers sense the need for bilingual instruction.

Bilingual Education is indeed the solution to school and district concerns for ELLs, because it answers the issues the schools and districts face, such as how to effectively transition students from Spanish to English; how much instruction should be done in Spanish; how to improve student reading in the second language; and which strategies work best for the English language. Psychology research shows that early-exit bilingual programs are favorable for Spanish-speaking ELLs (Manis, Lindsey & Bailey, 2004) who are fortunate enough to begin studying in the United States as early as kindergarten. These students are educated in Spanish from kindergarten to grade one, having ample time to establish the alphabetic principle, which is knowing that letters form words, and then the students are transitioned to English at their own pace from grades one to two (Manis, Lindsey & Bailey, 2004). Students like Eric, who transfer to American schools in later grades would benefit more from dual-language education, which not only results in bilingualism and biliteracy but also improves the students' achievement in all subjects (Lindholm-Leary, 2001). An evaluation of students in different types of bilingual education programs concludes that Ã'strongÃ" forms of BE, in which a student's home language is developed in school and not replaced by a second majority language for educational purposes, reduce repetition and drop-out rates and produce a more skilled employable work force, so they would make a good replacement for the English immersion programs in California (Lindholm-Leary, 2001). The development of a multilingual competence is needed in this age of globalization and increased immigration to improve a high school graduate's job opportunities, and dual-language education can be used as a means to develop full bilingualism and biliteracy in the United States.

Research in Educational Psychology shows that BE is more effective in teaching Spanish-speaking ELLs to read than the current English immersion program. Chueng and Slavin's recent research review of different schools that had ELL programs showed support for bilingual programs as opposed to English immersion. Twelve out of 17 studies of all types of ELL programs found effects favoring bilingual education, while five found no differences. Nine out of thirteen studies on elementary reading instruction for Spanish-dominant students favored bilingual approaches; four found no differences. Research on reading development in children shows that children need to establish the alphabetic principle, and this process is very difficult if they have to form letters and sounds into words they don't know, so it may greatly facilitate phonetic development to learn the alphabetic principle in their native tongue, a familiar language. The abundance of research in support of BE further proves that BE should be restored in California.

Other Educational Psychology research shows that BE programs are more beneficial to Spanish-speaking ELLs, because a transference of skills occurs from Spanish to English reading. Spanish vocabulary skills have been found to predict English reading comprehension skills, which means that BE programs allow students to acquire background knowledge and study skills necessary for schoolwork in English while developing skills in a second language that contribute to the first language's development by transference. August, Carlo, Proctor and Snow (2006) explored the effects that Spanish language alphabetic knowledge, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and listening comprehension have on English reading comprehension. They tested a sample of 135 Spanish-English bilingual Latina and Latino 4th-grade students, who were instructed in the same language and had the same initial English oral language proficiency. Their results showed a main effect for Spanish vocabulary knowledge, proving that literary skills transfer from Spanish to English.

Learning both Spanish and English languages through BE education has advantages for ELLs, for word knowledge in Spanish promotes growth in English reading. Psychology researchers investigated growth in reading, vocabulary, and memory in Spanish-speaking ELLs aged five to ten, and through growth curve analysis they proved that growth on measures of Spanish vocabulary, reading short-term memory, and word memory account for 12 percent of variance in predicting growth in English reading, of which, Spanish measures of word memory growth contribute unique variance (Swanson, Saez & Gerber 2006). Since growth in word memory in Spanish predicts growth in English reading ability, BE would benefit Spanish-speaking ELLs by making it easier for them to learn English.

English immersion does not work for Spanish-speaking ELLs in the United States, because the students are largely from low-class families, with uneducated parents, who do not speak English and do not have time for involvement with their children's studies, because they are working excessively. Two-year immersion programs in Quebec have successfully taught English students to read in French without academic damage, but immersion programs for Spanish-speaking English language learners in the United States are unsuccessful because of situational differences (Adamson, 2005). Quebec students are largely from middle-class families, with educated parents who are actively involved in helping the children with their schoolwork, but this situation is different for Spanish-speaking ELLs. Quebec students are also from small classes of about 20 students, while Spanish ELLs typically study in larger classrooms, having less opportunity for individual instruction and more of a chance to be overlooked by teachers. Even with situational advantages, many Quebec students still fail at learning French and transfer to all-English schools. Dismayed parents charge that the immersion model has created an inequitable system in Quebec society, because students who are not able to thrive in the immersion model may not acquire French as well and suffer linguistic and economic consequences. Still, immersion programs are effective for the majority of ELL students in Quebec, so keeping the program is sensible in Quebec. On the other hand, the majority of Spanish-speaking ELLs in California are not successfully learning how to read in English with the current immersion program, so the program should be replaced. Not only is the California immersion program ineffective in teaching ELLs English, but it also sustains the achievement gap between Spanish-speaking ELLs and the English-speaking majority by keeping linguistic development and economic statuses different.

The proven advantages of BE over English immersion in the development of English-language skills in Spanish-speaking ELLs and the demonstrated failure of the English immersion program in California prove that BE should be restored in California. While English immersion programs may be effective in other countries like Canada, English immersion does not work for Spanish-speaking ELLs in the United States, because the students are largely from low-class families, with uneducated parents, who do not speak English and do not have the time for involvement with their children's studies, because they work excessively. The fact that ELL teachers in California do not follow the English-only instruction limitation of English immersion proves that the program is insufficient for teaching Spanish-speaking ELLs how to read in English. BE is a solution to California's Spanish-speaking ELLs' need to learn English, as it would improve the students' English reading ability. BE would also serve as a means for solving the bigger problems of economic inequality and assimilation of minority cultures into American society by bridging the achievement gap between Spanish-speaking ELLs and their English-speaking classmates and removing the language barrier between them. BE would allow students to acquire background knowledge and study skills necessary for schoolwork in English while developing skills in a second language, which contribute to the first language's development. BE would give a student like Eric the chance to succeed in school and obtain a job that is compatible with his intelligence. Without BE, Eric may not even graduate from high school, like the 40-50 percent of Hispanics who drop out of high school (California Department of Education, 2006). Citizens' initiative removed BE from California, and the same initiative can restore BE and give millions of Spanish-speaking ELLs a chance to excel in academics and in life.

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