With debate about bilingual education constantly brewing...in my political science class, and my grade on the line, I took a half hour of my time and tackled the issue. Read on, to know how things are...
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Political Science 101 W.
Dr. Connelly
12 April 2001
In the very recent past of this country, and even today, there is an enormous urge for every government official, every news reporter, every school employee, and well, everyone, to be politically correct. Certainly these feelings are well intended, but possibly, in the rush to make everything exactly equal for everyone, confusing political correctness with civil rights, the American people subjugated immigrant children, usually Spanish-speaking, to an educational system that literally held them back by trying to help them back.
There is one simple fact that, though it may not seem the most sensitive and loving, will play into the lives of every single person immigrating to these united states. You need to speak English to succeed in this country. There is simply no denying it. Nearly all business transactions occur in English. Our government acts only in English. Even our late night television is exclusively in English, how can one hope to get by not knowing the language?
The effects of the type of bilingual education currently in effect are not helping the children gain the ability to live in mainstream American society. Advocates for these programs would point out that assimilation may not be the most important thing to a child's development. Don't they need to learn of their ancestry? Don't they need to keep a firm grasp on their ethnic roots? Aren't those issues more pressing and important than the speed at which a child learns English?
Of course they are not more important...when it comes to deciding what a school should be teaching. The children of immigrants already have some of the best teachers of their ancestry possible...their parents. As shown by the statistics, immigrant parents realize the need for their children to learn English (one thing they may not be able to teach well enough) and at the same time understand that they are best suited to teach the traditions, and the language, of their respective culture.
Often pro-bilingual education advocates will argue that non-English speaking students shoved into English-speaking classes will suffer from poor self-esteem and will then have a higher chance of dropping out. Like so many myths perpetrated by those who do not fully understand the issues they argue, for whatever political purpose, the statistics do not back this up. Children from non-English speaking homes do not suffer from higher drop out rates when put in normal classes. In fact, after having gained the ability to speak and write English, they are all the more equipped to handle the workload of an American education.
Bilingual education programs are not cheap. They require more teachers, and more training for those teachers. With the huge number of languages being spoken by the people of this world, and the constant immigration of many of those peoples into the United States, bilingual education programs could one day grow to an even larger size than they already are, and swallow up the funding our schools are in desperate need for. With the costs of bilingual education so high, and the benefits small, if not nonexistent, even the cold financial statistics say scrap the current program.
On one side of the issue, you have those in favor of bilingual education. They would like to continue to see much of a child's curriculum taught through that child's native language, ensuring that it is possible for the children to keep up with their studies in other subjects. On the other side, there are those saying we should throw out bilingual education all together, toss the non-English speaking children into the mix, and watch to see if they swim. Like, sadly enough, most issues, it seems the correct plan of action lies somewhere in the boring middle. Perhaps children from non-English speaking home should be left in normal classes and then kept after school to learn English a little better, and also to have their assignments and lessons reviewed in their native language. Though this would still take a few more faculty members, it would not require the size of the staff needed for the number of non-English classes being taught today.
This extra school should start as early as kindergarten, before the children have a chance to drop out under the added stress of more school. Now there are those that would say it might be harder on the children, having to stay in school later than other children. I don't claim that there wouldn't be social repercussions early in school. There are those that would say that it simply is not fair to make one child undergo more schooling because of his native language. Well, life is not fair. As horribly mean as that sounds, pushing America children early in life to learn English should be the most important goal of our schools. I would much rather see non-English speaking children have a little bit tougher time in childhood and have to spend a little extra time at school, than have them without an education later down the road, when their actual future will be in the air.