Should Bilingual Education Be Scrapped?

ROBERTO MEDINA

17, senior, Jefferson High School, Los Angeles

*

When I came to this country, I started first grade in Bell and the class was divided into two groups, Spanish and English. I was placed with the Spanish speakers. I had no trouble learning any of the subjects. In fact, I found it easier since it was in my language. Six months after that I moved to L.A.

The school I went to was Ninth Street Elementary and the system was similar, only this time the whole class were Spanish speakers. Some of the students knew how to speak English and others didn’t know it at all, but all of them knew Spanish.

So the teacher would instruct us in Spanish and would speak to us in English sometimes. That’s when I first started learning a few words in English, but most of the instruction the teacher made was in Spanish.

My second-grade teacher knew that my English was pretty limited. He spoke Spanish to me but he also encouraged me to learn how to speak English and he made the effort to make me learn English.

The transition began in the third grade, when we had to communicate with the teacher in English as part of the class. I found it hard at first because most of the communicating I did at home and at school was in Spanish. After third grade all of my instruction was in English. By then I was more adapted to speaking only English; but sometimes we spoke Spanish in class.

The classes from fourth grade on were English only and I found that a little hard to adapt to, although by fifth or sixth grade I was more or less adapted to both [languages].

Most of the kids went through the transition pretty well but there were a few who up to graduation from the sixth grade understood English but couldn’t speak it or write it very well. And I think that has to do with their parents at home--I mean maybe their parents didn’t encourage them. So it seemed to me that either they didn’t learn it as well or they chose not to speak it.

My parents were very supportive. I know some parents, and I think this is absurd, who don’t encourage their kids to learn English, but my parents were pretty supportive. They didn’t mind the fact that we were instructed in both Spanish and English. Although we did homework in English, we still spoke Spanish at home and most of the communication was in Spanish. I think if parents aren’t willing to support their kids, the school is limited in what it can do. If parents decide to say to their kids that they’re not to learn another language, I don’t think there’s very much the school can do [to make the kids fluent in English].

Did bilingual education slow my academic development? Not at all. It actually helped in that I could communicate easily with other people who aren’t very fluent in English.

I’ve been accepted to the University of California at Berkeley with a Regents’ scholarship and I plan to major in astrophysics. It looks like I’ll be going there for the next four years.

I don’t think this [bilingual] program should be eliminated. Historically, the U.S. is made of immigrant people who are from different cultures and who speak different languages. I think eliminating all those languages would not only [damage] those cultures, but it would also hinder people’s ability to carry out business with foreign nations.

*

YES: A father sees his youngest daughter being held back by the bilingual program.

LENIN LOPEZ

Garment worker, Los Angeles; participated in boycott of bilingual education program at 9th Street Elementary School

*

I have two kids in elementary school. One of them is in second grade, in what they call ELDP--English Language Development Program--which is basically taught in English. They do have an aide who will assist the kids in Spanish if they need it. But my youngest daughter, in kindergarten, was put in the bilingual program that is in Spanish, basically.

I see the difference. When my youngest son was in kindergarten, he was able to recognize the different sounds of the letters and was even able to speak some English.

On the other hand, [my daughter] has learned no English at all at school. She knows things in English because we teach her at home and they also teach her some English at her day-care center.

That worries me, because I believe that bilingual education is not working--at least at the Ninth Street School. It probably works for some other schools, for some other kids--I would say for some kids who just came from Latin America who are older--let’s say 10-, 12-years-old.

I’m not saying bilingual education is bad, but I strongly believe that for kids who start their educations here, from first grade or from kindergarten, bilingual education just does not work.

There are some kids at Ninth Street School in fifth grade who bring home homework in Spanish--completely in Spanish. I think this is just ridiculous. This is not good for them. After all, they’re not going to function in Spanish when they’re grownups.

I came from Mexico and my first language is Spanish. I learned English as a second language. And I don’t think [as some supporters of bilingual education have claimed] that the culture will be damaged, because after all, we speak Spanish at home.

How can I put it? Spanish is not the key to success in America.

We [parents] boycotted the school. We stood in front giving out leaflets to parents and we gained some popularity from other parents and eventually up to a hundred supported the idea.

I have several friends whose kids are in fifth or sixth grade and they don’t read and write English. My friends bring me letters [in English] so that I can read them. I ask, “Well, can’t your kids can help you?” And they say [that their child] speaks a little bit but he doesn’t read and write English--he is in the bilingual program. And so that’s why they support us in our boycott.

When I took classes at one of the community colleges, 80% of the students were Latinos. In one particular class, English 101, 70% of the students dropped the class within six weeks. They were not able to read and write proper English.

I wouldn’t like to see my kids in that situation. That’s why we are fighting at least to put my kids and some of these other kids in English-only classes.

[Some, however, have said] that parents like me who boycotted 9th Street Elementary School don’t understand what [people here] went through in the 1960s fighting for equal opportunity for Latinos and Blacks.

What I perceive from them is that they want equal opportunity, but they don’t stress how important it is to be equally trained, equally skillful, equally educated.

And by giving bilingual education to these kids we’re not making them equally capable. We’re doing the opposite, we’re handicapping them.