Bilingual Education

I’m an urban education specialist and have published extensively in the field. I also train urban school teachers. Acuna’s article is yet another example of a single-issue educator perpetuating his vested interest. I agree that schools fail Latinos in any tongue. Schools generally fail most students.

Forget the fact that more blacks drop out of school than Latinos; forget the fact that bilingual students drop out at the same or higher rates than most students; forget the fact that bilingual education reinforces segregation in public schools; or forget the fact that numerous reports show that bilingual education just doesn’t work for many. Coping with our dismal public school system cannot be easily translated into one self-serving issue, bilingual education.

Lack of motivation to complete one’s education is not exclusively an issue for bilingual education, as some would have us believe. Lack of motivation, pervasive in all urban public education, is not the restrictive property of the bilingual education lobby who wishes to sell the fashionable one-issue standards. The failure of public schooling to meet the needs of the many is far more complex than offering simplistic solutions for complex problems.

ALFRED LIGHTFOOT

Professor of Education

Loyola Marymount University