“Gwinnett latest district to launch dual education program” blared a headline over a June 16 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The newspaper said experiments with bilingual education— in the case of two Gwinnett County schools, teaching both in English and Spanish– is part of a “growing trend.” The article also listed dual language schools in several other Georgia counties with most having Spanish and another offering French and one even Chinese.
But the question being asked in Georgia education circles is whether public schools that teach elementary and middle students in two languages during the day are effective in getting all students to achieve effective English proficiency.
In diverse Gwinnett County– where white English-speaking students make up a third of the student population and Hispanic and other foreign-language speakers make up the rest– the article said the program would work like this: Elementary school students learn math and science in a foreign language from one teacher while their peers learn language arts and social studies in English from a different teacher. Halfway through the day, the students switch. Any math and science concepts students don’t understand in the foreign language would be reinforced with the English teacher. Students would continue with the program through the fifth grade.
Once they reach middle school, the idea is that they would be able to take an advanced foreign language class. Administrators would measure success using state standardized tests.
Teachers this writer interviewed (who don’t want to be identified for fear of retaliation by superiors) give mixed reviews of such bilingual education and its impact on students.
Joe Valentine, the Gwinnett schools’ director of foreign languages curriculum and instruction, argues that “we need to prepare them for an economy we have no concept of. But we know it’s going to become increasingly global.”
However, a teacher in a metro Atlanta elementary school whose classes are majority Spanish-speaking finds it best using the traditional English immersion model prevalent in most Georgia schools. Her youngsters, she cautions, “go home to parents or relatives who don’t speak English and don’t want to learn it. The adults increasingly live in their own communities and don’t assimilate. The children get no reinforcement with their English homework and struggle to keep up with their peers year after year. Bilingual education isn’t helpful at this point. Structured English immersion is for these children.”
Valentine says his program is cost-effective because there are no additional expenses in hiring teachers and the cost of materials is negligible. And that may be true in multilingual Gwinnett County.
Dr. Cliff Colwell of ProEnglish, a proponent of English immersion, addresses cost as well as the civil rights angle. “There are 327 languages spoken in this country. If you teach in a second language then there would be pressure to teach in other languages. You can’t deprive others. You’d have to teach in all 327 languages. We have that in medicine now. We have to provide language translations for Medicare funding. That is very expensive. But to teach all the children in all different languages, I can’t imagine the cost of that.”
For some elementary, middle and high school students– especially those well-grounded in English– schools offering dual language instruction might be the perfect parental choice. That would be confirmed if language proficiency tests show students perform as well or better than single-language students. Yet consider that Georgia has one of the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the country (fueled by illegal immigration) and many are non-English speakers. One inner city Atlanta third grade public school teacher, for example, told a state investigator that none of her third graders “knew English.” English immersion classes are best for those kids, Dr. Colwell says, and notes studies in California, Arizona and Massachusetts bear this out.
Outgoing State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge has set a goal of 20 bilingual programs in Georgia by 2020. Is this good or practical? Georgians who
believe in local control over their educational affairs will have their local school boards decide.
National institutions ranging from our armed forces to the federal court system operate only in English. Effective English communication is the key that opens doors to success in this country. Public school systems can opt to have bilingual schools, but in the long run will they achieve the goal of true English proficiency for all of their charges? After all, when immigrant kids graduate, they must compete for jobs and earn incomes in an overwhelmingly English-speaking culture.
