Latino Parents Decry Bilingual Programs

[Stan & Sandy Anonby]

Hi Paul!

For years we've been telling speakers of minority languages that
"maintenance of the L1 along with the acquisition of an L2 is enriching and
empowering."  So from where I sit, I've got questions like, Why aren't they
buying it?"  "They aren't listening to us, so who would they listen to?"

Stan


----- Original Message -----
From: <Paul_Lewis at sil.org>
To: <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: Latino Parents Decry Bilingual Programs


>
> Stan and all:
>
> I think the phenomenon described in the NY Times article and that you (and
> I) have observed elsewhere is a common one - parents want for their
> children what they perceive will be best for them.
>
> What is missing, however, is the opportunity for those parents to have a
> larger perspective on "what is best". Maintenance of the L1 along with the
> acquisition of an L2 is enriching and empowering.  The acquisition of L2
at
> the expense of L1 is impoverishing though it may, for the moment, seem
like
> the best option.
>
> Informing individuals and the community as a whole of the value of and
> options for language maintenance is what we CAN do without imposing a
> decision from the outside. With adequate information and education about
> language and, in particular, the value of L1, many parents would make
> different choices.
>
> Your kids attending an English school is a choice for L1 maintenance in
> your case while at the same time, I know (because I know you),  you are
> also encouraging and providing opportunities for your children to acquire
> and use a second language in a variety of contexts.  That is a choice that
> many parents don't think they have - and in many cases don't have --
> because policy and practice forces them towards language shift.
>
> M. Paul Lewis
>
>
>
>              "Stan & Sandy
>              Anonby"
>              <stan-sandy_anonb                                          To
>              y at sil.org>                <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
>              Sent by:                                                   cc
>              owner-lgpolicy-li
>              st at ccat.sas.upenn                                     Subject
>              .edu                      Re: Latino Parents Decry Bilingual
>                                        Programs
>
>              07/19/2004 02:57
>              PM
>
>
>              Please respond to
>              lgpolicy-list at cca
>               t.sas.upenn.edu
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Maybe most people place more value in getting ahead economically than on
> preserving their language.  Here in Brazil the government promotes
> bilingual
> education for the Indians.  Nevertheless, in almost all the villages I've
> been to, both parents and children are adamant that they prefer "white
> teachers", who teach only in Portuguese.  This is true even in villages
> where the kids are monolingual Indian language speakers.  This makes me
> sad,
> but what right do I have to tell them to do otherwise?  I put my children
> in
> an English school for the same reasons the Indians put their children in
> Portuguese school.
>
> Stan
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harold F. Schiffman" <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> To: "Language Policy-List" <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 10:04 AM
> Subject: Latino Parents Decry Bilingual Programs
>
>
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/education/14educ.html
> >
> > >From the NYTimes, July 14, 2004
> > ON EDUCATION
> >
> > Latino Parents Decry Bilingual Programs
> > By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
> >
> > ON a sultry night in late June, when the school term was nearly over,
two
> > dozen parents gathered in a church basement in Brooklyn to talk about
> what
> > a waste the year had been. Immigrants from Mexico and the Dominican
> > Republic, raising their children in the battered neighborhood of
> Bushwick,
> > they were the people bilingual education supposedly serves. Instead, one
> > after the other, they condemned a system that consigned their children
to
> > a linguistic ghetto, cut off from the United States of integration and
> > upward mobility.
> >
> > These parents were not gadflies and chronic complainers. Patient and
> > quiet, the women clad in faded shifts, the men shod in oil-stained work
> > boots, they exuded the aura of people reluctant to challenge authority,
> > perhaps because they ascribed wisdom to people with titles, or perhaps
> > because they feared retribution. With the ballast of one another's
> > company, however, they spoke. Gregorio Ortega spoke about how his son
> > Geraldo, born right here in New York, had been abruptly transferred into
> a
> > bilingual class at P.S. 123 after spending his first four school years
> > learning in English. Irene De Leon spoke of her daughter being placed in
> a
> > bilingual section at P.S. 123 despite having done her first year and a
> > half of school in English when the family lived in Queens. Benerita
> > Salsedo wondered aloud why, after four years in the bilingual track at
> > P.S. 145 in Bushwick, her son Alberto still had not moved into English
> > classes. Her two other children were also stuck in bilingual limbo.
> >
> > "I'm very angry," Ms. Salsedo said in Spanish through an interpreter.
> "The
> > school is supposed to do what's best for the kids. The school puts my
> > kids' education in danger, because everything is in English here." And
> the
> > children had no trouble expressing their own frustration lucidly enough
> in
> > English. "I ask the teacher all the time if I can be in English class,"
> > said Alberto, a 9-year-old who will enter sixth grade in the fall.  "The
> > teacher just says no." For the time being, Alberto added, he learns
> > English by watching the Cartoon Network.
> >
> > Listening to this litany, I experienced the sensation that Yogi Berra
> > memorably called "dj vu all over again." Five years earlier, in the
> > rectory of another church only a few blocks away, another group of
> > immigrant parents voiced the identical complaints about bilingual
> > education - that the public schools shunted Latino children into it even
> > if those pupils had been born in the United States and previously
> educated
> > in English, and that once the child was in the bilingual track it was
> > almost impossible to get out. An association of Bushwick parents,
> > virtually all of them Hispanic immigrants, had gone as far as suing in
> > State Supreme Court in a futile attempt to reform the bilingual program
> in
> > local schools.
> >
> > Back then, the school system's many critics ascribed the bilingual
fiasco
> > in Bushwick largely to the failed policy of decentralization. What
> > "community control" meant then in Bushwick was a school district
> dominated
> > by the neighborhood's City Council member, Victor Robles ( now the city
> > clerk). School jobs, including those in bilingual education, were
> > patronage plums.
> >
> > For years, bilingual education coasted along on its perception as a
> > virtual civil right for Hispanics. Maybe such a reputation was deserved
> 30
> > years ago, when the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund sued and won a
> consent
> > decree requiring that New York City offer bilingual education. But as
the
> > innovation hardened into an orthodoxy, and as a sort of employment niche
> > grew for bilingual educators and bureaucrats, the idealistic veneer
began
> > to wear away.
> >
> > The grievances of Bushwick's parents point at an overlooked truth. The
> > foes of bilingual education, at least as practiced in New York, are not
> > Eurocentric nativists but Spanish-speaking immigrants who struggled to
> > reach the United States and struggle still at low-wage jobs to stay here
> > so that their children can acquire and rise with an American education,
> > very much including fluency in English.
> >
> > As a candidate for mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg assailed the status quo
in
> > bilingual education and called for its replacement with
English-immersion
> > classes. His pledge rested on firm ground. Reports commissioned by
> > Chancellor Ramon Cortines in 1994 and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in 2000
> > concluded that children qualified for mainstream classes more rapidly
> > coming from English as a Second Language programs than from bilingual
> > ones. E.S.L. classes take place largely in English; bilingual education
> in
> > the students' native language.
> >
> > With decentralization dismantled in 2002 and a hand-picked school
> > chancellor installed the next year, Mayor Bloomberg seemingly backed
> away.
> > Diana Lam, the top aide to Chancellor Joel I. Klein until her ouster,
was
> > both a product and proponent of traditional bilingualism. The mayor now
> > emphasizes improving the existing bilingual program, despite its
> > demonstrable shortcomings.
> >
> > WITH Ms. Lam gone, perhaps the mayor and Mr. Klein can fulfill their
> > erstwhile pledges. Carmen Faria, the new deputy chancellor, yesterday
> > promised large-scale reforms beginning next September. What she means by
> > that is not junking bilingual education or even curtailing its use as
> much
> > as improving teacher training and incorporating clear performance
> > standards and oversight. Yet the Department of Education already has a
> > highly successful model of E.S.L. instruction in two existing high
> > schools, Bronx International and La Guardia International.
> >
> > "Bushwick is a test case of how bilingual programs are actually being
> > implemented," said Michael Gecan, a national organizer for the
Industrial
> > Areas Foundation, which has worked closely with parents there for more
> > than a decade. "We have great confidence in Klein. We've found him to be
> > very responsive and very aggressive. But we've been concerned about the
> > bilingual effort. This is a large vestige of the old school culture. It
> > remains in the system. And it's intensively guarded by the local
> > politicians and the teachers' union."
> >
> > In one respect, though, the bilingual program in Bushwick did subscribe
> to
> > the English-immersion approach. Parent after parent in the church
> basement
> > last month remembered receiving, and then naively signing, a letter from
> > school that apparently constituted their agreement to having a child put
> > into bilingual classes. The letter, recalled these Spanish-speaking
> > parents, was written only in English.
> >
> >
> > E-mail: sgfreedman at nytimes.com
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>