Bilingual Education
... attitudes toward school and improved achievement. Experts in the education field persuaded congressmen that it would be the best possible way for children to learn English. The result of bilingual education has been dismal. A study showed that children who participate in bilingual classes are slower to join the regular English-language curriculum. State law requires that no child receives more than three years of bilingual education. For children coming over from a different country, too much is throw at them at once. The are forced to learn all of the school subjects like every other American kid-math, geography, history, science, etc.-but they are also forced to learn the tool that is necessary to make it: the English language. How can elementary students handle and succeed through a time like this when they have so much coming at them? Some professionals say that by teaching the content in the child’s native language, bilingual education helps to give the student several years to learn the English language, after which they can move on to an English-only curriculum. Bilingual education is not a cure. It cannot guarantee success because recipients of bilingual education are at a disadvantage compared with native-born Americans. Bilingual education does not make up for poverty immigrant families. It does not make up for non-English speaking parents’ inability to help their children. Yet bilingual education gives immigrant children a chance to succeed. A chance that many immigrants my have never had. The original idea sounded safe enough. Non-English speaking children would fall behind if they were taught wholly in a language they did not understand. So they would be taught their native language but with increasing infusions of English. Over the span of three years, the ...