English-Only Is An Utter Failure
* Re “English Skills Still the Key in Test Scores,” Aug. 15:
We have 1.48 million limited-English students in California. Of those, only 169,929 are receiving English-language development and academic subject instruction in a language other than English. It has been two years since the other 1.31 million have been receiving instruction only in English.
In a good number of districts, English-only instruction has taken place for years. Why are these children not fluent in English (in writing, speaking and reading) even though English is the only language they’ve heard in school?
It would appear those who assumed an English-only curriculum would be a cure-all for the low performance of limited-English-proficient students were not correct.
They promised 100% fluency in academic English in one year. However, they have delivered only slight improvement in two years (from 7.6% in 1998 to 7.8% in 2000). That I call an utter failure.
ANA-MARIA GREENE
Anaheim
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