This assignment was the last paper of the semester. In this paper we were supposed to to delve deeper into our exploratory topic while using academic sources to make an intelligent argument. My topic delved into the two philosophies (critics, supporters) on bilingual education in America.

Below is my final draft for the RCA Essay:

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Demetrios Tzanetatos

Professor Rodwell

FIQWS

11/19/20

What America Thinks

            In the past 50 years, immigration to the United States has quadrupled making almost 14% of the population (Budiman). While this percentage continues to grow data from the U.S census shows that immigrant children take up 30% of the students in American public schools. Many of which do not know how to speak the English language. This has caused the education system to devise a plan of bilingual education to help immigrant children learn the language of their new country. The goal of bilingual education is to teach immigrant children who are labeled “LEP” or “Limited English Proficient” the English language while still encouraging them to maintain their native language and culture. While many immigrant students have benefited in programs such as “LEP” or “ELL” also known as “English language learners” there has been a massive controversy regarding bilingual education in America. With the rise of immigration into the states two different philosophies have emerged within some U.S. citizens (Parmon). On one side of the spectrum, people believe that bilingual education will diminish the English language being spoken in America and therefore want to eradicate it from schools. The other half of people believe that bilingual education and programs such as “LEP” and “ELL” are necessary for the English language to grow as more immigrants will learn to speak the language. People who support bilingual education also believe in the importance that immigrant children must retain their native culture and language as they learn English. These two different philosophies among critics and supporters of bilingual education have the power to change the way immigrants are taught in American schools. Bilingual education is vital to immigrant’s language acquisition because it allows them to learn English while retaining their native language.

Bilingualism in America has seen a meteoric rise as more immigrants enter the United States. However, this was not always the case. In 1924 the Immigration Act also known as the national origin system restricted the number of immigrants that can live in the United States. It was not until 1965 where the government nullified the national origin system which then allowed immigrants from South American countries access into the U.S. with no restrictions (Orr). This resulted in many Spanish speaking immigrants to migrate into the United States. Many of these immigrants and their families did not understand English. As a result, Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas introduced a bill of bilingual education in schools to help these Spanish speaking children (Orr). In 1968 the Bilingual Education Act was passed with the sole purpose to aid schools in creating educational programs to help Spanish speaking students learn English (Stewner). An important aspect of bilingual education that has sparked controversy is that students in programs such as “LEP” learn the English language while continuing to speak their foreign language as instruction.

The controversy regarding bilingual education began when some critics disapproved the teaching methods used in bilingual programs. These methods include the usage of the student’s foreign language mostly Spanish in school while they slowly learn English. Today federally supported programs offer about 125 foreign languages as instruction to help immigrants learn the English language (Fiske). The concern critics have over this is the belief that many immigrant students will choose to speak their native language much more and will not try to learn English (Parmon). Those who are against bilingual education believe it is the outmost importance that immigrant children leave behind their native culture and language in order to assimilate into the American ways. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said “Bilingualism keeps people actively tied to their old language and habits and maximizes the cost of the transition to becoming American”. Critics argue that bilingual education will lead to immigrants having the option of “keeping a foot in both camps” with the United States and their native country which could result into them going back home (Rothstein). Due to these teaching methods employed in programs such as “LEP” the argument that immigrant children will never understand the English language well has sparked. Even though many critics share this concern there has been little evidence to prove bilingual programs are ineffective when teaching English.

The criticism against bilingual education has been around since its introduction in the American education system however its methods in teaching immigrants is not the only controversy. A major problem opposers of bilingual education have with programs such as “LEP” or “ELL” is how much they cost. Since the market crash of 2008 school budgets have been decreasing yearly with low funds and thousands of educators getting layed off.  With the surge of immigrant children entering the American public school system programs like “LEP” receive $1.9 billion every year to operate (Ferris). It has been said that bilingual programs have been growing at a faster rate than which school districts can fund them. Due to high allocated funds in English language learner programs many other educational programs are left without any money and need to shut down. A concern shared among many American taxpayers is that they spend billions of dollars for bilingual education while many of their children do not partake in these programs. Supporters of bilingual education believe the cost to run these programs is necessary as it will help children learn English and give them the confidence to succeed in this country. While there is no official language in the United States of America there has been several movements such as “English Only” and “English First” movements whose purpose was to make the English language the official language of the country. The English Only movement has had their hand in trying to end bilingual education in the United States for the past several decades. Even though most of the country still has bilingual education there are some who have made the English language their official language. This has led to the termination of bilingual educational programs in some states.

Even though there are those want to eradicate bilingual education from schools there are many who support English learning programs and all the benefits they have on immigrant children. The argument made by critics that these programs are ineffective in teaching English are based off no evidence proving that bilingual education effects immigrants from learning English (Parmon). In fact, students who receive instruction in their own language are able to slowly connect the words to the English ones leading them to learn the language. Those who criticize the way educators help immigrants learn English in bilingual programs bring up how immigrants in the past were in all English classes and had no choice to learn the language. While this is true that in the early 20^th century immigrant children had no bilingual programs in school however, very few benefited. Immigrant children in monolingual schools in the early 20^th century were last in academic performances and many never learned how to speak the English language (Parmon). This proves that the teaching methods of the past were ineffective when trying to help immigrants acquire the English language. Supporters of bilingual education believe it is very important that immigrant children learn English while continuing to remain close to their native language and culture. This is because educators in bilingual programs know that there are many benefits when being bilingual. There have been countless studies on the benefits of being bilingual has on the mind and in the real world. In the work force being bilingual can increase your salary by 5-20 percent. This is why many educators in bilingual programs help students learn English and their native language not only be fluent in both but to have a higher chance of future success.

The controversy over bilingual education has been a never-ending discussion in the education system. Both sides whether critics or supporters make good points whether it being the cost of bilingual education in the United States or the effects it has on immigrants learning English. However, taking away bilingual education will affect the immigrant population greatly. Many immigrant children will lose hope in education due to not understanding the curriculum if there is no bilingual education. History will repeat itself as immigrants will fall last in academic placement and have the highest dropout rates. Bilingual education helps immigrants gain confidence and problem-solving tactics that will help them in the future. Going to Greek-American school at a young age I saw first-hand the positive effects of bilingual education. Many students were immigrants from Greece and did not speak any English. Since many of the teachers at my school spoke Greek, they put them into bilingual classes where they would learn the lesson in both Greek and English. This helped many of the students break out of their shell and to start learning the English language while staying close to their native tongue. Now many of them are fluent in both languages as a result of bilingual education. As more immigrants come into our nation the education system will need to devise a plan to strengthen.

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Works Cited

Budiman, Abby. “Key findings about U.S immigrants.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 20 Aug 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.

Ferris, Marc. “The Elephant in the Classroom: Mass Immigration’s Impact on Public Education:  Federation for American Immigration Reform.” Leading Fight to Stop Illegal Immigration, 2016, www.fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/elephant-classroom-mass-immigrations-impact-public-education. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.

Fiske, Edward B. “THE CONTROVERSY OVER BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA’S SCHOOLS; ONE LANGUAGE OR TWO.” The New York Times, 1985, www.nytimes.com/1985/11/10/education/controversy-over-bilingual-education-america-s-schools-one-language-two.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.

Parmon, Patricia. “Educating Immigrant Children: Bilingualism in America’s Schools.” Social Sciences Journal, Vol. 10: Iss 1, Article 14, 2010, repository.wcsu.edu/cgi/ view content. cgi? article=1075&context=ssj. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.

Rothstein, Richard. “Bilingual Education: The Controversy.” The Jossey-Bass Education Series, 1998, pp. 218-229. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.

Stewner-Manzanares, Gloria. “The Bilingual Education Act: Twenty Years Later.” New Focus, 1988, ncela.ed.gov/files/rcd/BE021037/Fall88_6.pdf. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.

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How this assignment relates to my growth? Parts of any CLOs that address this growth?

This paper has helped me grow because once again we changed our genre of writing. This time we wrote a researched paper like the exploratory paper however now we had to add our own perspective on the topic. This helped me because throughout the semester we have written in different genres which have expanded my writing capabilities. 

The course learning outcomes that I achieved with this paper were CLO#8. This CLO is composing texts that integrate your stance such as critical analysis and argumentation. I achieved this in this assignment by writing about how bilingual education is important to immigrant children. By doing this I took a stance in my paper and wrote a critical analysis on my argument. Another CLO that I addressed was the first course learning outcome which mentions exploring a variety of genres. I achieved this CLO in this paper because the genre of the RCA paper was different to our previous papers. In this assignment I wrote my perspective of an argument while analyzing both sides. Finally a course learning outcome I addressed in this paper was CLO#6. This CLO correlates with the work I completed because I needed to locate sources to identify my argument. When researching I used the CCNY database to find sources on my topic and analyze the information being used.