Which states support bilingual education

Liberal historian and John F. Experience and research in the United States and other countries around the world, including Canada, Finland, and Sweden, have demonstrated that children can learn their own and a second or even a third language—for example, French, Spanish, and English; Swedish, Finnish, and English; or Mandarin, Cantonese, and English—and turn out academically and linguistically competent in both, all three, or more.

Canada, despite language-based political tensions that seem to appear occasionally in Quebec, has a relatively seamless approach to bilingualism that spans from school instruction in both English and French to official government business to road signs and to labels on merchandise. Far from being a problem, bilingualism is an asset both to individuals and to society.

Bilingual education a means can help us take advantage of this asset by promoting bilingualism a goal both for English speakers and for students who come from non-English backgrounds. Apart from the obvious intellectual and cultural advantages of speaking two or more languages, bilingualism has been linked to a number of other positive outcomes.

In a comprehensive review of 63 studies, researchers from Washington State University found that bilingualism is associated with cognitive benefits such as increased control over attention, improved working memory, greater awareness of the structure and form of language, and better abstract and symbolic representation skills. Beyond the cognitive benefits, recent studies suggest that bilingualism may also have economic benefits for young adults related to employment, promotion, and earnings.

One study has found that fluent bilingualism is associated with a decreased likelihood of dropping out of high school and an increased probability of obtaining a higher status job and higher annual earnings. The economic benefits of bilingualism can vary significantly depending on factors such as age, location, industry, and languages spoken. For instance, in towns along the U. For instance, fluent bilinguals are more likely than English-speaking monolinguals to gain employment in middle-tier public service roles such as police officers, medical assistants, and receptionists.

On the other hand, fluent bilinguals are less likely than their English-speaking monolingual peers to have occupations such as physicians, lawyers, and public safety managers, even at similar levels of education.

To the extent that these other factors constrain the advantages bilingualism confers, it appears that bilingual education can also play a role in reducing their effects. In a review of the research on bilingual education in Canada and the United States, researchers found that bilingual education can have positive effects on intergroup relationships, identity, and self-esteem. The United States has great linguistic resources we are not only failing to use—our schools are actually quashing them, if only through neglect.

Yet only a negligible fraction of these students are in programs that simultaneously nurture their home language while using it to help them acquire English and also to help English-speaking students acquire a second language.

Last year, 17 years after California followed by Arizona and Massachusetts began its assault on bilingual education, California state Senator Ricardo Lara introduced a bill in the California legislature, recently approved, to put a proposition on the California ballot that would give students more access to bilingual and even multilingual instruction.

School districts, seeing the benefits bilingual education offers to their students, are also actively fighting for these programs. Despite legislation in California that has come close to eliminating bilingual education, 30 percent of students in the San Francisco Unified School District are enrolled in bilingual programs.

New York City has partnered with foreign governments that provide funding for bilingual programs in their languages and is developing or expanding 40 dual-language programs for the — school year. Support for bilingual education is evident at the state level as well.

For its part, in reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Congress is missing an opportunity to capitalize on this groundswell of support by including provisions and even providing funds to encourage and help states and localities develop and implement bilingual instruction, not just for language minority students but for all students to have the opportunity to become bilingual. Such provisions were part of the ESEA legislation of the s but were eliminated under No Child Left Behind—a dysfunctional aspect of the law that should be corrected.

Federal legislation cannot and should not attempt to impose bilingual education, of course. Haire , C. Orange County Register. Hopkinson, A.

New funds available to train bilingual teachers in California. Lindholm-Leary, K. Dual language education. Avon, England: Multilingual Matters. Olsen, L. The role of advocacy in shaping immigrant education: A California case study. Teachers College Record, , Parrish, T. Delancey, D.

Effects of the implementation of Proposition on the education of English learners: K findings from a five-year evaluation. Snyder, T. Table English language learner EL students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools, by state: Selected years, fall through fall Digest of education statistics NCES Washington, DC: U.

Steele, J. L, Slater, R. Effects of dual-language immersion programs on student achievement: Evidence from lottery data. Takanishi , R. Promoting the educational success of children and youth learning English: Promising futures. Umansky , I. Reclassification patterns among Latino English learner students in bilingual, dual language immersion, and English immersion classrooms.

American Educational Research Journal, 51 , Valentino, R. Effectiveness of four instructional programs designed to serve English learners: Variation by ethnicity and initial English proficiency. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37, Valencia, R. The Mexican-American struggle for equal educational opportunity in Mendez v. Westminster : Helping to pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education. Wiese, A.

The Bilingual Education Act: Language minority students and equal educational opportunity. Bilingual Research Journal, 22 , Wollenberg , C. Mendez v. Additionally, students may feel a greater sense of belonging in school environments where they are not asked to leave part of their linguistic and cultural identity at home.

For these reasons, education leaders in several states e. Qualified instructional staff are at the heart of all strong bilingual education programs. Most bilingual education programs require teachers to hold an endorsement in bilingual education or English as a second language and to pass a language proficiency test.

Yet across the United States, bilingual teachers are in short supply. Leaders in these areas find themselves looking for proven strategies to strengthen their bilingual teacher pipeline and decrease the number of pre-service bilingual teachers who leave education before completing their training.

Our bilingual education briefs offer support to state and local leaders at every stage of development. Many of those new arrivals are teens who came without their parents and have no recent history of attending school. Some are highly transient, migrating with the seasons wherever the work is. Like many districts in New Jersey , Vineland hosts a transitional bilingual program for students who arrive with limited English skills.

This year, about students are enrolled. They learn their core academics in Spanish — often right next door to classes where the same content is taught in English — but they have time built into the day for speaking, reading and writing in English. More: Vineland ESL, bilingual programs win state honors. During the first week of school this fall at Vineland High School, students in a 10th grade bilingual algebra class solved problems written on the board while their teacher wandered around, greeting students and checking their homework.

She turned and saw that another had neglected to carry a negative number through an equation. Since she was hired seven years ago, she made sure that all new textbook purchases were available in both Spanish and English, so students in the bilingual program could learn at the same pace as their English-speaking peers.

Last year, the students met all the targets outlined on the state report cards. Other small victories are happening.

Kevin Sanchez, 17, who arrived from the Dominican Republic last year with limited English, won first place in a regional science fair after investigating how windmills worked and building a model of one.

Sanchez almost backed out from the fair when he learned that participants were required to make an oral presentation to the judges. Encouraged by his bilingual science teacher, Sanchez enlisted a friend to translate for him. Another major barrier to starting or expanding dual-language programs is the critical shortage nationwide of teachers who can speak and teach in Spanish and English.

More than 30 states reported critical shortages in English as a Second Language teachers and world language teachers. As a result, more districts groom their bilingual teachers, either by helping staff achieve the necessary certifications or by encouraging former bilingual students to come back and teach.

The district has long supported a dual-language, Spanish-English program in all its elementary schools, which has helped close the gap in the early grades for those who are learning English.