Week 7 Checkpoint

According to an article written on the Macmillian Social Science Library’s website, bilingual education is the practice of offering educational instructions in two languages. A bilingual education allows children whose primary language is not English to receive their school work in both their native tongue and in English (2010). Authors Adams and Jones believed that "Native language and culture need to be respected in schools and used as the foundation for second language acquisition in order to ensure that [English language learners] receive a quality education" (2006). Supporters believe that immigrant children perform better when they receive their educational instructions in their native language early and slowly learn English as they advance. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 states that children should be instructed in their native tongues for a transitional year while they learned English but were to transfer to all-English classrooms as soon as possible (Duignan, 2004). According to author Peter Duignan, bilingual enthusiasts neglected English and Spanish language instructions and cultural maintenance became the norm (2004).

But there are those who feel that bilingualism has affected the education of immigrant children here in the United States for years. Non supporters of bilingualism believe that immigrant children would learn English quicker if they were forced to use it all the time in classrooms. They also point to a figure released by the California state department that found that since the early 1990’s; only five percent to seven percent of students in bilingual education classes are fluent in English every year. The numbers were so bad that in 1998 a runner up in the 1994 California Republican gubernatorial primary and millionaire name Ron Unz who said he was inspired by a group of parents protesting against bilingual education in Los Angeles, started what would become a national campaign to end bilingual education (Ginn, 2010). What he decided...