Issue

Public education is missing the boat by not allowing children to develop and maintain literacy in their first language as they become competent in English. As an educator for over 20 years, I have witnessed firsthand the rapidity with which immigrant children lose competency in their first language in their struggle to learn English. We have seen students lose the ability to use their home languages because they studied English exclusively at school. These children fall victim to a linguistic gap, separating them from their parents and relatives. Once displaced from their own family circles as a result of having lost first-language competency, the sense of self-worth and identity of these children naturally suffers.We must encourage all children, English speakers and English learners, to develop at least two languages with native-like fluency before graduation from high school. Students in the United States cannot compete with those from other countries who already must meet this requirement.Of equal importance is that we value multilingualism. If we don't change attitudes about second language learning, some students will continue to be seen as incompetent merely because of their inability to speak English; their intellectual, linguistic, and psychosocial abilities will go unrecognized.—Rosa Molina is the former principal of River Glen Elementary School, San Jose Unified School District. The school has a two-way bilingual immersion program, which received a Title VII Academic Excellence Grant in 1994. She is now a coordinator for Project Two-Way in San Jose.

Native language and culture preservation belong at home. Let the schools concentrate on teaching every child English. With 200-300 languages spoken in this country, there is no alternative. As it is, schools have trouble squeezing in English, history, and math. As former New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez wrote in his book, Tales Out of School: "Talk to any elementary school teacher or administrator today and they'll tell you that their curriculum is so cluttered they can't possibly make it do all that is required of it."Furthermore, parents should decide if they want their children to maintain their ancestral language. Many immigrant parents prefer that schools give their children an education that enables them to take their rightful place in an English-speaking nation. Ernesto Ortiz, a Mexican working on a Texas ranch, put it best: "They teach my children in Spanish in school so they can be busboys and waiters. I teach them in English at home so they can be doctors and lawyers."These parents often accept the promises made to them by advocates of bilingual education. Margarita Reyes told a reporter that she "trusted the teachers." Ms. Reyes' American-born, English-speaking daughter was placed in a "bilingual" 1st grade class whose teacher spoke little English. Her daughter is finally in an all-English 6th grade class, but is struggling. What was done to this girl is just plain wrong.—Jim Boulet, Jr., is executive director of English First, an organization opposed to bilingual and multicultural education based in Springfield, Va.

In our society, all students should be bilingual or trilingual, particularly in our border and cosmopolitan states. Educators, therefore, must create a climate in which languages are valued.Several programs, instructional strategies, and professional development resources can help schools meet the primary language needs of students. Some are schoolwide programs; others give classroom teachers techniques they can use to provide bilingual instruction. For example, using cooperative learning in two-way bilingual programs is particularly effective; teachers can team English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students who then learn all the subject matter in two languages.Research supports bilingual education. Collier and Thomas recently conducted a study comparing students who maintain their first language in school with those who don't. They found that, regardless of teaching approach, students who used their primary language performed better academically than those in English-only programs over the long run. Our findings from seven years of experimental-and-control studies have indicated that when students learn to read and write using their primary language, even math scores improve. What's more, students in two-way immersion programs and transitional bilingual programs have higher self-esteem and are more cooperative than students who don't receive primary language instruction.—Margarita Calderon is a research scientist for Research on Education of Students Placed at Risk, John Hopkins University. She conducts teacher institutes in the United States and Mexico, and is an author for the new Houghton Mifflin English and Spanish Reading Series.

The role of public schools in native language maintenance should, for economic and scheduling reasons, be limited and voluntary, based on the expressed desires of the communities they serve. More important than maintaining first languages, public schools have the urgent responsibility to give these students rapid, effective English-language learning opportunities, to remove the language barrier to an equal education, and to ensure an integrated school community.Native language maintenance courses can be provided at minimum cost, if there are staff members and parents who are qualified and available to teach such courses. For example, as a school administrator in Newton, Mass., I organized an elementary-level, after-school Italian language and culture class that met twice weekly for 45 minutes and a mini-course in Chinese for 3rd-grade students that gave two 45-minute lessons per week, for six to eight weeks, during school. Communities can organize their own language programs, with their own teachers and curriculum, and with free use of school space after school hours. Such a program is available to Arabic-speaking children in Dearborn, Mich.I also favor programs at the secondary school level, such as Spanish for Native Speakers: Native Spanish speakers can develop literacy while studying literature in that language, while native English speakers who are proficient in Spanish will benefit from being in a class with native speakers.—Rosalie Pedalino Porter directs the The Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ) in Amherst, Mass. She is the author of Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual Education.