ESSAYS ON THE ANTI-BILINGUAL INITIATIVE


BY STEPHEN D. KRASHEN


PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION




"English Language Education for Children in Public Schools" is a proposal submitted to California voters by Ron Unz and Gloria Matta Tuchman. Several aspects of the Unz-Tuchman proposal are not in question at all: "Immigrant parents are eager to have their children acquire a good knowledge of English," English is an important language, and we certainly have an obligation and duty to provide children with English literacy. The rest of the proposal is extremely problematic. Its claims and proposed changes are completely unsupported.

The proposal asserts that the public schools of California currently do a poor job of educating immigrant children, and waste financial resources on costly experimental language programs whose failure over the last two decades is demonstrated by the high dropout rates and low English literacy levels of many immigrant children. This essay suggests that these points and the rest of the proposal are extremely problematic and that its claims and proposed changes are completely unsupported.

Critics of bilingual education have cited the high Hispanic dropout rate as evidence against bilingual education. Since most bilingual programs are Spanish-English, it is concluded that bilingual education must be responsible. In this note, I review what is known about dropout rates among Hispanic students.

February 9 -- Ron Unz put an interesting paper on his website attacking Steve Krashen and Jim Cummins for various concerns. Here is Dr. Krashen's response, which includes excerpts from Unz' paper.

Children at Taft School scored at the 48th percentile in English reading on the CTBS in Spring, 1997, well above the district average of 22.5. The claim has been made that the Taft School in Santa Ana produces superior results in English language development because they refuse to do bilingual education. Krashen's analysis is that Taft's "success" is the focus of this article.

A brief note countering a recent press release from the "English for the Children" campaign which claims that "After 25 years of bilingual education, a quarter of all children in California public school. don't know English, and of these, only about 5% learn English each year."

The core of the case for bilingual education is that the principles underlying successful bilingual education are the same principles that underlie successful language acquisition in general. These principles are: (1) We acquire a second language by understanding messages, by obtaining comprehensible input. (2) Background knowledge can help make second language input more comprehensible, and can thus assist in the acquisition of the second language. (3) The development of literacy occurs in the same way as second language acquisition does.

Bilingual education continues to receive criticism in the national media. This Digest examines some of the criticism, and its effect on public opinion, which often is based on misconceptions about bilingual education's goals and practice. The Digest explains the rationale underlying good bilingual education programs and summarizes research findings about their effectiveness.

By James Crawford, Stephen Krashen and Haeyoung Kim

March 29 -- Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about bilingual education -- if not several. Polls on California's anti-bilingual Proposition 227 have been contradictory. That's because they have posed simplistic questions about a complex issue. Ask whether schools should provide intensive English classes for immigrant children, and you'll get overwhelming agreement. That's how the Los Angeles Times Poll last October characterized the English-only ballot measure. Not surprisingly, the Times found 80 percent support among registered voters statewide; 84 percent among Latinos. But ask whether native language instruction should be used to help children keep up in school while they are learning English, and people like that idea, too. A Times poll in November reported that 60 percent of Los Angeles County voters approved of bilingual education, while 37 percent were opposed. (Hispanic Link News Service)

En español -- La iniciativa Anti-Bilingue: confusa en cualquier idioma

by Stephen Krashen, James Crawford, and Haeyoung Kim. It has been claimed that most California voters support Proposition 227, the proposal to end bilingual education. In this study, the authors attempt to demonstrate that the results of polls depend on how the question is asked. They asked undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a course on language education to interview six registered voters. Three were asked the question used by the Los Angeles Times Poll, and three were asked an alternative, that they felt more accurately describes what proposition 227 entails. Subjects were asked if they would support the proposal, vote against it, or had no opinion.