Introduction:

Bilingual education as we know it today came from The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 ("History"). This is also known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. "Title VII was the first federal recognition that LESA (limited English speaking ability) students have special education needs…[and that] bilingual programs that address those needs should be federally funded" (Stewner-Manzanares 154). Many people felt that this was a remedy for civil rights violations. For example, in the late 1960's "Spanish-speaking children were dropping out of school in unacceptably high numbers as high 50%" (Porter 2). Because of the very high percentage in dropout rates, politicians and educators joined forces to help the children read, and then enacted The Bilingual Education Act.

Educators devised different ways to educate students to spoke little or no English. In Keith Baker's book, Bilingual Education in Massachusetts: The Emperor Has No Clothes, he lists four basic types of bilingual education. They are as follows; Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), Submersion, English as a Second Language (ESL), and immersion (Baker 19). This paper will focus on Transitional Bilingual Education.

Transitional Bilingual Education:

Transitional bilingual education is the theory that "reading in one's native language facilitates reading in a second language…. [And] that children's achievement in a second language depends on their mastery of their native language" (Porter 3). In other words, a solid foundation in the students' native language best prepares them for learning in English.

The roots of this theory come from professor Jim Cummins at the University of Toronto. In 1999, Jim Cummins presented a public discourse debating bilingual education. He was at the National Conference of the American Association of Higher Education in Washington, DC.. In his speech, he makes five claims in support of his theory. His first claim is that "[b]ilingual programs for minority and majority language students have been successfully implemented in countries around the world" (Cummins 2). Another claim is, "Bilingual education, by itself, is not a panacea for students' underachievement…. 3) The development of literacy in two languages entails linguistic and perhaps cognitive advantages for bilingual students…. 4) Significant positive relationships exist between the development of academic skills in [the development of the first and second languages]…. 5) Conversational and academic aspects of language proficiency are distinct and follow different development patterns" (Cummins). Stephen Krashen, professor at the University of Southern California, is the proclaimed authority in California. His theories are similar to Cummins', but his approach in teaching bilingual education differs from Cummins'. Krashen states that "[w]hen schools provide children quality education in their primary language, they give them two things…Knowledge and literacy" (Krashen 1). He goes on to support Cummins theory indirectly, "the Knowledge that children get through their first language helps make English…more comprehensible. Literacy [is] developed [when] the primary language transfers to the second language" (Krashen 1). Krashen makes the claim that because children who arrive with a good education are successful in learning English is proof that bilingual education works (Krashen 2).

Rosalie Pedalino Porter, an educator and writer for the Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ) Institute, wrote a paper titled Twisted Tongues: The Failure of Bilingual Education. She said that after five years as a bilingual teacher in Springfield, Massachusetts, "I discovered very early that the theories being pronounced as "gospel" at the University of Massachusetts did not match the reality of the classroom" (Porter 4). She later claims, "I could not escape the conclusion that it was the basic idea of bilingual education that was seriously flawed" (Porter 4). She also claims "Bilingual education denies that children learn a second language most naturally and effectively [where] they begin at an early age" (Porter 5). Sheldon Richman, who wrote an essay titled Bilingual Education: A Failed Experiment on the Children, agrees with Mrs. Porter. He claims that a "large body of research shows that native-language instruction is an inferior method of moving limited-English-proficient children into full proficiency" (Richman 2). He also makes the claim that "'[b]ilingual education' as it exists in most public schools is not really bilingual. Rather, students are instructed solely in one language-typically Spanish. In fact, it is a gross perversion of the English language to label 'bilingual' the forcing of students into Spanish-only classrooms" (Richman 15).

In their reasons for supporting bilingual education, they all share common ground in one thing: they all want to help children learn, the difference is in their approach to it. Jim Cummins for example, pushes his theory on Transitional Bilingual Education because he strongly believes that a child has to know the native language before the second language is taught. Irma N. Guadarrama, Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Houston, gives a good reason for TBE. She states that

One of the most cogent arguments in support of bilingual education is that children learn best when instruction proceeds from the known to the unknown. . . . Native-language-based instruction is aligned with learning theory, and as a crucial component of bilingual education, contributes to the pedagogy that encompasses both the students' culture and language as well as the socialization and politics that result from the convergence of experences (Richman 4).

The reasons some people are against TBE is that they see the program in a real classroom, and see that it does not work, as in California before proposition 227. In the Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1998, Bettina Boxall quotes people who after not being able to learn English, "[y]ou really think you're dumb" (Boxall 4). In addition, people are against transitional bilingual education because there are other programs that they think work better. For example, Dual Immersion is a program that proves to work better than transitional bilingual education with children in Helms Elementary in Houston, TX. In the Houston Chronicle, Heather Saucier wrote an article titled Dos Languages; Program encourages Bilingualism. She gives a story that supports two-way immersion, which is a form of bilingual education where students learn to write in both English and Spanish within the same time frame. She writes:

'I was scared to death,' admitted Dawn Wilburn, who struggled with last-minute jitters after choosing to have her daughter educated in a foreign language. . . .  But, the mother's fears have since subsided. [Her daughter] is now in second grade, and. . . .  rolls Spanish words off her tongue as quickly as English ones (Saucier 1).

With that story, Heather Saucier tries to illustrate that two-way immersion (dual language) encourages bilingualism, while transitional bilingualism is harmful (Saucier 2). She goes on to quote Patrica Flores, who is a dual language coordinator for Helms elementary. Patricia Flores says, "[t]ransitional bilingual education is harmful. It takes away a language. . . . Dual language (education) adds a language. Everybody wins" (Saucier 2). She later tells another story about Sergio Sandoval's daughter, "Sandoval said his children were kept in Spanish-speaking class too long and not introduced to English until the fifth-grade. He said he planned to put Karina, his youngest daughter into an all English-speaking classes. [That was his plan] until he learned about dual-language programs, he says 'at first, I saw it as an experiment. I didn't know if it would work or not. . . But for [my daughter] the main thing is to be able to read and write in both languages." Karina is now literate in both Spanish and English thanks to the Dual language program at Helms Elementary (Saucier 3-4). Also, in my questionnaire, José J. Romero, a junior communications major, has first hand experience with bilingual education. He said that when his school, which used a TBE template, taught him Spanish until he went to middle school. In middle school, there was not a bilingual program as extensive as the one in his middle school. He was in the ESL program, he says he missed out on a lot of the training he should have gotten if he was taking normal English classes in grade school. He said that it was very tough to catch up with his fellow English-speaking students in middle school. Fortunately, it seems that he did catch on. If he didn't, he might have not even have graduated.

Now that we have seen claims on both sides and some of their reasons, we must look at the evidence used to support them. When Jim Cummins made his five claims, the evidence for his first claim is "[a]s documented in a recent volume by Cummins and Corson that documented programs in more than 30 countries…students who are taught a minority language for part of the day do not suffer adverse consequences" (Cummins 2). His second claim is backed up with the evidence that underachievement comes from many sources other than bilingualism; he does not cite any statistics or other proof than the books he has written. For his third claim, he backs himself up with 150 research studies (Cummins 2). His fourth claim he only goes on to further say "This is true even for languages that are dissimilar (e.g. English and Chinese)" (Cummins 2). Overall, Jim Cummins presents data 'proving' that bilingual education does work. Stephen Krashen on the other hand has evidence that is less tangible. In his essay, he is making claims that sound good, but the evidence he needs to back them up with is lacking. He is an authority in the subject, though. He was the creator of the bilingual program that Californians voted down with proposition 227.

Rosalie Porter, since she was a bilingual teacher, has real class experience. Her first claim that bilingual education is seriously flawed, is backed up. She states that "[i]t is abundantly clear that there has been an almost total lack of accountability in the case of language minority children....California tolerates a success rate of only 5% in its limited-English students 'graduating' out of bilingual classrooms" (Porter 7). Also, she later states that, "[t]he Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs....has failed to do its job....by its failure to make what is learned from the funded research available for the improvement of school programs" (Porter 8). In her essay, she relies on evidence given from surveys, books, and public information about the programs.

Sheldon Richman's article is full of evidence. For example, he has a table of Title VII grants to all states since 1969. Richman gets this source from the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. His paper is full of support. He supports the first with statistics from the U.S. Department of Education, New York City Board of Education with examples of transitional bilingual education not working, and statistics from the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. His second claim that bilingual education mostly exists as Spanish-only is also backed up with statistics from National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Overall, Sheldon Richman's paper is quite extensively supported.

Conclusion:

Bilingual education as we know it today is a program that has been in place for about 25 years. Since its enactment, bilingual education in certain states has become entwined in the thorn bushes of politics. We need to take the politics out of bilingual education and use what works. Children's lives are too important for them to be the guinea pigs of our theories. We should not become attached to different theories of bilingual education to the extent that we lose sight of the reasons for education. We should pay attention to what works and forget about any political ramifications that might crop up. The goal of bilingual education is to make every child literate; freedom at the local level should be given to schools, teachers and parents to decide what is best for the children.