[lg policy] Spanish in the US

[Miriam E Ebsworth]

Dear Mostari,

About the only consistent thing in our schools is that everyone is supposed
to become proficient in academic English by the time they graduate from
High School. (Operationally defining proficiency raises many questions.)

While  the official law of the land is that cohorts of a certain size must
be offered bilingual education (Lau vs. Nichols and the remedies), there
was a subsequent local decision allowing more programmatic flexiblity, and
as a practical matter the offerings are different in each state. ESL stand
alone, pull out or push in, Sheltered English, even sink-or-swim immersion
(decades of research are regularly ignored by politicians and policy
makers).  There are a even a few states where bilingual education was
actually outlawed by popular vote! California is one, but that is being
reviewed as per the upcoming election.

Some schools do offer a range of bilingual programs with Spanish (or
Mandarin, or the language of another community) used either as a
transitional language (transitional bilingual) or a developmental one along
with English (developmental or late exit bilingual). There is also a "dual"
model where students learn each others' L1 and L2 together (dual bilingual,
dual immersion, 2-way bilingual). But the labels are used inconsistently so
you would really have to look at each program to see how the languages are
actually distributed.

There is also a movement for States to confer a "Seal of Biliteracy" to
high school graduates in order to promote and celebrate bilingualism and
biliteracy. (California and New York have both signed on to that.)

The State of New York has recently approved revised regulations (Part 154)
which you can google for more local information.

In contrast, there have been bilingual private schools for hundred of year.
I attended one where we did everything in English from 9-12 and everything
in Hebrew from 1-4. Elite schools for French abound and there are new
charter schools offering bilingual programs (they are funded through public
education but do not follow many of the public school regulations).

Our Congress has just approved some new legislation that includes policy
for ELLs (Emergent Bilinguals) and it is in the process of being
interpreted. Overall, it gives more discretion to the states.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope it gives you a glimmer of
the diversity and complexity in L1 support and/or development offered in
our schools.

I'm sure other colleagues will chime in to explain more.

Cordially,
Miriam

Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, PhD
Dir. of PhD & Post-MA Programs in Multilingual Multicultural Studies
NYU Steinhardt,
316 East Building
New York, NY 10003

Research Editor: Journal of Writing and Pedagogy
Member, NABE Research SIG Advisory Board
Co-chair, ELL Think Tank


office phone: (212) 998-5195
office fax: (212) 995-3636




On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 3:01 PM, mostari hind <hmostari at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi all ,
> Is it true that the language of instruction in the American schools is
> English , and how about Spanish speaking areas in the US, is Spanish the
> language of instruction used in parallel with English ?
>
> Best
> Dr Mostari
>
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