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Almost twenty-nine years ago, bilingual education as it is known today was launched as a “transitional program to give immigrant children a linguistic leg up” (Hancock and Katel 89). ... Today, however, many critics claim that bilingual education has failed miserably in fulfilling its lofty intentions and has, ironically, served only to become “dumping grounds where students languish for years without learning English” (Hancock and Katel 89). Some troublesome issues plaguing bilingual education are the academic quagmire of many Hispanic students, the growing discontent of Hispanic parents, and the massive protest of teachers against an unfair bilingual policy. To resolve the problems caused by the ineffectiveness of bilingual education for Hispanic students, major changes should be made in the program, and alternatives for teaching English to language-minority students should be tried.
Bilingual education programs were hardly uncommon in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a steady stream of Europeans immigrated to America. ... However, he mentions that in the late 1900s, anti-Christianism and racism put a damper on these early bilingual education programs, causing them to be dismantled and making English the mandatory medium of instruction for teaching newcomers. According to Worsnop, it was not until much later, in the 1950s, that bilingual education, sparked by the arrival of Cuban refugees in south Florida, was resurrected. He states that the first experimental bilingual education programs were spearheaded by Dade County (Miami) to help arriving children to adapt to their new environment, and soon other communities followed suit. “The widespread support for bilingual education,” he says, “helped advocates persuade lawmakers to fund bilingual programs during Congressional hearings in 1967” (707).
Paul Long, author of The English Language Debate: One Nation One Language, states, “By 1973, the federal budget for bilingual education had grown to 45 million dollars, and it supported programs in twenty-six different languages” (61). He also says “bilingual education obtains $10 billion annually in funding and accommodates a vast aggregate of immigrant groups, the largest being Hispanics.
Approximate Word count = 1639
Approximate Pages = 6.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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