Immigrant Children

You know. You see. It was in 1974 that the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in a case called Loud vs. Nicholas. The court ruled that dumping a non English speaking child into an all English classroom without providing special help violated that child's right to equal educational opportunity. But the question of how that help would be offered generated lots of controversy. Many educators favored a bilingual education approach teaching academic subjects in the child's native language while he or she learned English. Clear legacy or let's face speaking children grew up with learning English so they can join us to keep this new speaking country. Otherwise you want California be a separate nation from the rest of the country. That's what they want. That's true that's ridiculous. Former senator S.I. hia kowa says bilingual education programs do more harm than good. So many children are going to bilingual classes so-called And as a result are

not learning English in school and actually they're being gypped they're being defrauded of the education are entitled to the children growing up in America. It makes you so sad because for some of the essay The gator that's the that how you are you do not suspect something like that. Rosario a Naya a member of the San Francisco Board of Education disagrees because to me that sounds us in the answer because I think that we know and there's nothing that we can do I think it's beautiful that we have to recognize that we are a pantry that has wonderful beautiful diversity and what is the birth of the towns different languages and different cultures language part of the culture and to say that you're an American because you want to learn another language. It sounds horrible and Naya says a recent study by the district shows that children who are taught in a bilingual program have higher test scores and language minority children

in regular classrooms. No you know what. Oh you know if you hear the controversy over bilingual education is the best means of teaching immigrant children English is further complicated by the fact that for some language groups credentialed bilingual teachers are impossible to find again. Rosario and I think that the you know whenever we can then there has been some Isn't this cool thing that we have on the one the two teachers but teacher aides and I think they mean some parents to become teacher aides and so these strategies have to be that way then to find as soon as we can and we really almost the entire reason to come and work with us. Anybody that has the languages and educational background that will be able to help those children that are not that big in numbers and speak all their language than

English. The philosophical debate on how to best teach English to language minority children has been joined by economic considerations. Many schools around the country are strapped for funds which according to Laurie Olson of the National Coalition of advocates for children can help feed public resistance to doing anything to help foreign born students. I feel that the debate over bilingual education has not been a pedagogical debate it's not been a debate about effective programs it's been a politicized debate about it. How To what degree people feel we can tolerate a multi-lingual bilingual society as opposed to a monolingual society. Proponents of bilingual education have seen a policy shift at the top U.S. education secretary Laurel co Vaso supports bilingual programs a sharp departure from the position of former Secretary William Bennett. Secretary Cohen Well I think we've already had close to 25 years of experience

in terms of doing bilingual in this nation. And certainly we now recognize it is as an academic discipline in universities. Secondly literally millions and millions of children have benefited from bilingual education. I'm a realist. But some supporters of bilingual education programs fear that the current economic and political climate makes additional federal financial support unlikely. I think it's wonderful to have a secretary of education that has to have the right philosophy. Unfortunately we cannot do things only with good intentions and with good philosophy say again we do need manpower. We do need special training. We do need to reach out to more parents and to do that. We do not have resources we deem to school. I'm Kathy McAnally reporting.