Bilingualism issue rises again

"One year is tough," says Rania Ioannidis, the English Language Learners Curriculum instructional teacher at Thurgood Marshall Middle School. She says students often pick up the oral skills first, but the nuances of academic lessons and writing elude them for much longer.

The Boston Globe review showed that 83 percent of English-language learners in Grades 3 through 12 still weren't fluent enough in English to join regular classes after a year, and more than half weren't fluent after three years – perhaps in part because the rules had been inconsistently applied and some districts have struggled to set up an intensive program for English as a second language.

Ron Unz, the California businessman who spearheaded all three ballot measures, says he's more convinced than ever that getting rid of bilingual education is the only way to teach immigrant children. "You can argue about what it means for a state or for America to have English as its official language, but the one practical issue you could talk about is making sure schools teach English to children," he says.

Mr. Unz claims that over four years, the academic performance of 1 million immigrant students put in immersion programs in California roughly doubled, while students who were still in bilingual programs didn't improve. He bases his findings on California test scores posted online.

But Professor Slavin says such claims – outside a scientific study – should be taken lightly. Of the high-level research, he says, numerous studies have found that kids learn best if their native language is given an important role, and many studies have found there's no difference.

"Virtually no studies find that it's better to be taught in English only," he says. The most effective programs, he says, seem to be the "dual language" ones in which children spend parts of each day in English and in their native language.

According to one report, more than 4 million students with limited English were enrolled in public schools in the 2000-01 school year, making up about 10 percent of all students.

Proponents of traditional bilingual education say no one questions that learning English is a primary goal – but they don't want children's native languages forgotten in the process. "We want to compete in the global market right now, and the only way to do that is with kids who have embraced another language early on," says Pedro Ruíz, president of the National Association for Bilingual Education in Washington.

Most of the early claims about the failure of bilingual ed had to do with the quality of the programs, he says, particularly when the challenge of finding qualified bilingual teachers led to subpar hiring decisions.

"Academically, the programs have changed," he says.

Indeed, bilingual education wasn't any less controversial when it was first mandated in the early 1970s – in Massachusetts, among other states. "Like so many things in education, one day the law said you had to have bilingual education. The next day it was not allowed. There are problems on both sides," says Slavin. "It should be a matter for local control and research."

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