Bilingual education: The controversy

Phi Delta Kappan

Volumn 79, Issue 9, 1998, Pages 672-678

  Rothstein, Richard ^a  

^a ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE   (United States)

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EID: 25644459374     PISSN: 00317217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Technically, "bilingual education" refers to all programs designed to give any support to non-English-speaking children, including programs whose main focus is immersion in English-speaking classrooms. In public debate, however, the term generally refers to only one such program, "transitional bilingual education (TBE)," in which native-language instruction in academic subjects is given to non-English speakers. In this article, I use the term in its nontechnical sense to refer only to "TBE" programs.
2. Web site, English First Foundation: http://englishfirst.org.
3. Mark Pitsch, "Dole Takes Aim at 'Elitist' History Standards," Education Week, 13 September 1995, p. 18.
4. Newt Gingrich, To Renew America (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 161-62.
5. Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 58.
6. Michael R. Olneck and Marvin Lazerson, "The School Achievement of Immigrant Children: 1900-1930," History of Education Quarterly, Winter 1974, pp. 453-82, Tables 3, 5, 6.
7. David K. Cohen, "Immigrants and the Schools," Review of Educational Research, vol. 40, 1970, pp. 13-27.
8. Seymour B. Sarason and John Doris, Educational Handicap, Public Policy, and Social History (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 155-56, 340-51.
9. Olneck and Lazerson, Tables 11 and 12.
10. Howe, pp. 277-78.
11. Fall 1995 Preliminary Ethnic Survey (Los Angeles: Information Technology Division, Los Angeles Unified School District, Publication No. 124, 1996).
12. Georges Vernez and Allan Abrahamse, How Immigrants Fare in U.S. Education (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 1996), Table 3.2.
13. These figures are not strictly comparable; estimates are based on data in Vemez and Abrahamse, Table 4.2, and in National Center for Education Statistics, Dropout Rates in the United States: 1995 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, NCES 97-473, 1997), Table 9.
14. Native-language instruction in public schools was also common in the Southwest, particularly in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, which were formerly part of Mexico and whose native populations, not their immigrants, were originally Spanish-speaking Mexicans. It was also common in Louisiana, where French-language public schools were established well after the Louisiana Purchase to preserve native French culture.
15. Diego Castellanos, The Best of Two Worlds: Bilingual-Bicultural Education in the United States (Trenton: New Jersey State Department of Education, CN 500, 1983), pp. 23-25.
16. Sarason and Doris, pp. 180-81, 194.
17. Heinz Kloss, The American Bilingual Tradition (Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 1977), pp. 149-50.
18. Ibid., pp. 61, 86, 180;
19. Castellanos, p. 19; and Mary J. Herrick, The Chicago Schools: A Social and Political History (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1971), p. 61.
20. Kloss, pp. 69, 86, 158-59, 190; and Castellanos, pp. 24-25.
21. Kloss, pp. 177-78, 184.
22. Castellanos, p. 23; and Paul E. Peterson, The Politics of School Reform, 1870-1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 55.
23. Peterson, pp. 55-56; Castellanos, p. 25; and James Crawford, Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory, and Practice (Trenton, N.J.: Crane Publishing Company, 1989), p. 22.
24. "The School Question," Milwaukee Sentinel, 27 November 1889.
25. Herrick, p. 61; Kloss, p. 89; Peterson, pp. 10, 58; William F. Whyte, "The Bennett Law Campaign in Wisconsin," Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 10, 1927, pp. 363-90;
26. and Bernard Mehl, "Educational Criticism: Past and Present," Progressive Education, March 1953, p. 154.
27. Crawford, pp. 23-24; and David Tyack, "Constructing Difference: Historical Reflections on Schooling and Social Diversity," Teachers College Record, Fall 1993, p. 15.
28. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 US 390 (1923).
29. Castellanos, pp. 43, 49; Crawford, p. 26; and idem, Hold Your Tongue (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1992), p. 72.
30. See, for example, Rudolph Troike, "Research Evidence for the Effectiveness of Bilingual Education," NABE Journal, vol. 3, 1978, pp. 13-24;
31. The Bilingual Education Handbook: Designing Instruction for LEP Students (Sacramento: California Department of Education, 1990), p. 13;
32. Iris Rotberg, "Some Legal and Research Considerations in Establishing Federal Bilingual Policy in Bilingual Education," Harvard Educational Review, May 1982, pp. 158-59;
33. and Rosalie Pedalino Porter, Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual Education (New York: Basic Books, 1990) p. 141.
34. Leonard Covello, "A High School and Its Immigrant Community - A Challenge and an Opportunity," Journal of Educational Sociology, February 1936, p. 334.
35. Ruben G. Rumbaut, "The New Californians: Research Findings on the Educational Progress of Immigrant Children," in idem and Wayne Cornelius, eds., California's Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for Educational Policy (San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, 1995).
36. For a discussion of Rodriguez as prototype, see Stephen D. Krashen, Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education (Culver City, Calif.: Language Education Associates, 1996), p. 19.
37. Rumbaut, Table 2.6.
38. Dropout Rates in the United States: 1995, Table A-37;
39. and National Center for Education Statistics, The Condition of Education 1997 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, NCES 97-388, 1997), Indicators 8, 22.
40. Gregory Rodriguez, The Emerging Latino Middle Class (Malibu, Calif.: Pepperdine University Institute for Public Policy, 1996), Figure 22.