Test Scores Soar After California Bans Bilingual Ed.
"In 1998, California voters passes a voter initiative, Proposition 227, that banned bilingual education. Two years later, the state issued its Stanford 9 Achievement Test reports."
"Among 2nd grade students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), the portion of students testing above the median increased nearly 50% in the three subjects tested: Reading, Math, and Language. Opponents of English immersion have long argued that it was necessary for children to spend a few years in bilingual education to prepare themselves for English-language instruction. However, youngest students showed the greatest increases in test scores."
"These test scores measure only those students who remain in special classes for LEP. Another important measure of the effectiveness of LEP programs is how many of the students in the programs are able to be sent into mainstream classes. Redesignation tends to moderate test score improvements, as it removes the top-performing students from the testing pool, lowering the test averages. However, despite this, redesignation rates increased 12%, accelerating their improvements."
"Proponents of bilingual education have offered alternative explanation for the improving test scores, including increasing familiarity with the test, smaller class sizes, and a return to "phonics-based" reading instruction. (Phonics is a method of learning to read by recognizing which sounds are produced by letters and letter combinations. Previously, the education establishment had also predicted that the introduction of phonics would be harmful.)"
"These factors may have played a role; test scores improved among English-language students. In any case, these factors would have made it difficult to prove that ending bilingual education was the factor responsible for the test score improvements. However, many school districts attempted to defy Proposition 227. By doing so, they helped prove the case against themselves. Those school districts which most resisted implementation of Proposition 227 showed the smaller improvements[this still goes on today]; whereas those that most aggressively implemented Proposition 227 showed the greatest improvements."
The upshot is that English Immersion is the best way to bring students into the mainstream educational system. Piddling along for years coddling those who do not have a strong English language capability (or those who don't wish to learn it) does no one a favor.