BILINGUAL EDUCATION:

 

The following article suggests that bi-lingual education is the reason Hispanic students have such a difficult time reaching parity with other students in our public schools.  It has long been known that LULAC supports bi-lingual education because it allows them to maintain control of their base.  If Hispanic students become acculturated into American culture as their ancestors once did, then LULAC would cease to exist.  LULAC is the chief backer of bi-lingual education and why it continues to exist. There is no viable proof that the Bilingual program helps most Hispanic students.  They would be much better off if they were to learn English in the first  grade through immersion.

 Lynn Woolley: An argument against increased school funding

Published: 26 November 2012 06:18 PM

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20121126-lynn-woolley-an-argument-against-increased-school-funding.ece?action=reregister

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, what should we think about the lawsuit that Texas school districts are pursuing against their own taxpayers? Our schools are failing — and all we hear is the classic and worn-out excuse that we’re not spending enough money.

Nearly 3 out of 5 districts have sued, including big-city ISDs like Dallas, asking Judge John Dietz to force a new funding system that would provide schools with about $8 billion more each year. This is on top of the money that taxpayers in several districts have voluntarily handed over by approving bond issues. Even as you read this, some districts are building ornate new school buildings.

Two things are true. First, the new buildings will be nice, but they will not make children learn any more than they did in the old buildings that will be torn down. Second, even if Dietz rules for the districts, history tells us that more money is not going to fix our schools.

One of the roots of the problem is a politically correct teaching method that has its own constituency, and therefore will be hard to abolish. But if we want the burgeoning numbers of Hispanic children who now attend Texas schools to succeed, we have to find a way to kill bilingual education. The bilingual lobby will have a fit if we attempt to do this — but that points to a hard, cold fact: Bilingual education is for the teachers; [and the politicians;] it is not for the children.

The case of Oceanside, Calif., is a prime example of what can happen — virtually overnight — when American schools revert to the traditional language of our country. When California voters (including 84 percent of Hispanics, according to a Los Angeles Times poll) passed Proposition 227, called “English for the Children,” most districts ignored the measure and went right on doing what they were doing. Oceanside decided to try it — and saw test scores shoot up, so much so that Superintendent Kenneth Noonan, who had opposed English immersion, became an activist for it.

Back home, Dr. Christine Rossell conducted a study in 2009 titled “Does Bilingual Education Work? The Case of Texas” that was published by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. After a thorough study of several methods of teaching English to kids who have low proficiency, she concluded:

“Bilingual education is more expensive than other programs and is the least effective.”

Rossell’s recommendation was to adopt sheltered English immersion as the default for public schools while giving parents an option to choose a program that best meets each child’s needs — and to test students in English.

And yet Texas school districts seem unwilling to look at the root causes of why the schools are failing. Education activist Donna Garner of Waco says flatly that one of the causes is bilingual education. She says it will take real courage on the part of Texans to face the truth.

It will also take a competent judge in the current lawsuit and a strong Legislature willing to stand up to the bilingual education lobby. As Garner points out, the judge should make the districts prove that the money they’ve already spent on certain programs has produced results — and that more money would produce even better results.

In the case of bilingual education, that would be a high burden. Any foreign language teacher will tell you that immersion is the best way to learn French or German. And yet we’re told that the opposite is true for poor children from Mexico. It’s simply not true. But this lawsuit is not about truth. It’s about money.

Texas-based writer Lynn Woolley may be contacted at lynn@belogical.com.