[lg policy] US: Immigration Reform and Bilingual Education Policy-A Dangerous Combination

[Harold Schiffman]

Immigration Reform and Bilingual Education Policy-A Dangerous Combination

by multilingualmania on October 2, 2010

in Anti-Bilingualism,Bilingual Education,Bilingual
Politics,Immigration,Language Policy

Chicago Immigration Protest May 1, 2006

In April of 2010, the passage of the scandalous Arizona Senate Bill
1070 resurrected the immigration reform debate, once again placing
bilingual education and national identity in the spotlight. Obama,
cognizant of the pull Hispanic voters had in the 2008 election,
reacted with disapproval, stating that the Arizona law would
“undermine the basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,
as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so
crucial to keeping us safe.” Yet, nearly half a year later, it is
clear that his administration has no actual plan to address reform in
2010. Instead, it looks like immigration and bilingual education will
be key issues framing the upcoming mid-term election debates.

Democrats and Republicans alike have tried and failed to overhaul the
broken immigration system for several presidential terms. For nearly
four years, the Bush administration attempted, half-heartedly, to gain
bipartisan support for reforms that would establish a guest worker
program and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet,
his lackluster efforts merely left behind a legacy of exclusion and
xenophobia; his most “successful” policies included No Child Left
Behind (killing the Bilingual Education Act and, with it, hundreds of
bilingual education programs) and the construction of 700 miles of
border fences.

Despite paying lip service to his Hispanic constituents, it doesn’t
look like Obama is trying any harder than his much-ridiculed
predecessor. Although he reaffirmed his commitment to pursuing
immigration reform in a videotaped message at the March for
Immigration rally in Washington this Spring, in actuality, the
over-promising President has pursued an aggressive anti-immigrant
strategy that is not so unlike that of the previous conservative
administration. Congress’ current reform discussion seems to focus on
enhancing border security, cracking down on undocumented workers, and
limiting future access to blue collar workers.

So, how does today’s debate affect bilingual education? The
controversy in Arizona revived the decades-old discussion on American
identity and multiculturalism, once again providing a platform for
English-only supporters who characterize bilingual education as a
threat to national unity. Obama himself has little to say about
bilingual education, an issue he that he only lightly touched upon in
his campaign. He seems to support transitional bilingual education: a
policy that political pundits see as the safest stance and that
educators on both sides of the fence view as an ineffective
compromise.

Yet, despite my impatience for a serious overhaul of immigration, I
would argue that bilingual education has no place in the debate to
begin with. Despite the myths perpetuated by right-wing extremists
that all English-language learners are the children of wily immigrants
looking to get something for nothing, nearly 1/5 of these kids are
born to citizens and legal residents, many of them third or fourth
generation. Nevertheless, extremist politicians and their constituents
see the immigration debate as an opportunity to push their
English-only agenda, scaring those who are on the fence with doomsday
descriptions of a modern Tower of Babel. This tactic couldn’t be more
dangerous. By including bilingual education in the heated discussion
on who deserves to be “in” or “out,” it is innocent children who
quickly become the targets of racism and xenophobia. From where I
stand, lumping pro-English education policies into immigration reform
is, by far, the greatest threat to national unity. By demonizing
schoolchildren who are struggling to learn English, we set the stage
for an educational hierarchy where a child’s future success hinges on
his or her mother tongue.

I think that Delia Pompa, the vice president for Education at the
National Council of La Raza, said it best in her 2009 op-ed for the
New York Times conversation on “The Best Way to Teach Young
Newcomers.” In her defense of bilingual education, Pompa writes: “What
doesn’t work is politicizing the issue. What occurs in the classroom
should be determined by educators guided by what is good for all
children; it shouldn’t be driven by debates on immigration.” Pompa
argues that parents and educators, not politicians, should decide the
future of bilingual education for the 5 million+ English-language
learners in the system today, and I couldn’t agree more. “They are not
all immigrants who arrived in the United States yesterday and at the
schoolhouse door today. These are American children. And what has no
chance at all of working is avoiding responsibility for educating
these children.”

http://multilingualmania.com/immigration-reform-and-bilingual-education-policy-a-dangerous-combination/

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