I wonder if this would be true for Native languages

[Rudy Troike]

Re Andrew's question:

   Yes, dual language instruction would surely work, IF Native-language
curricula were developed paralleling usual content in regular English-only
classes. The situation vis-a-vis Spanish/English is that a weird backlash
against 'bilingual education' developed, with opponents convincing the
public that it was monolingual instruction in Spanish, dooming students
to isolation from access to English (even a Yale professor of literature
denounced bilingual education on these grounds, ignoring the obvious
meaning of 'bi-', which was distorted to be interpreted as 'mono-').
Ronald Reagan campaigned against bilingual education on these grounds,
and part of the legacy of the Reagan Revolution was to pervert support
for bilingual education into support for English as a Second Language
(ESL) support. In California, even native Spanish-speaking voters were
intimidated into supporting a referendum funded by a zealous businessman
named Unz, who later brought the same initiative to Arizona, to outlaw
bilingual instruction. The label 'dual language' was developed as a
workaround to avoid the taint of the perversion of 'bi-' to mean 'mono-'.
Also, critically, it more actively sought to recruit native English-
speaking children into classes, and was often installed in magnet schools,
where dual language instruction was made attractive, rather than treated
as a ghettoizing program designed as remedial instruction for immigrants.
(The educationally preposterous nature of the Arizona law is that if a
child enters school unable to comprehend English adequately, he/she is
denied placement in a program utilizing the child's native language, and
is can only be admitted into bi-/dual language instruction once his/her
competence in English is deemed adequate.) I think the same irrational
and discriminatory provision applies in California, so except in schools
on a reservation, this absurdity would have to be factored -- Native
language could NOT be used until a child had demonstrated an adequate
level of proficiency in English, by which time it might be too late to
take maximum advantage of children's natural language learning ability.

   Rudy