Posted on 10/06/2011 2:50:17 PM PDT by dangus
Texas schools perform horribly according to standardized testing. But it's not for the reasons liberals want you to believe. It's because RINO politicians have cratered to radical anti-American leftists over a desperately misguided "multicultural" program misleadingly named "Bilingual education."
As practiced in Texas, biligual education is the practice of keeping students with Hispanic surnames, whether they know English or not, in segregated classrooms where they receive no opportunity to learn English. The result is a massively high dropout rate, and the complete inability to learn.
In 2010, the Center for Education Policy of the Texas Public Policy Foundation issued this devestating critique of Texas' bilingual education program, written by Dr. Christine Rossell, entitled "Does Bilingual Education Work? The Case for Texas.":
The Report can be found here. The report found that 85 of Texas language-minority students who were NOT placed in Bilingual education programs for any of a variety of exceptions were deemed able to take the TAAKS, Texas' standardized educational assessment test. But only 46% of bilingual-education students took the test.Texas is a large growing state due in part to high-birth rates and individuals choosing to move to Texas from other states and countries. According to the state demographer, one rapidly expanding demographic is the Hispanic population, which is expected to double between 2000 and 2025 from 6.6 million people to more than 13.4 million people. The number of students in Texas public schools that are not proi cient in English* continues to grow. In the 2008-09 school year, Texas had 448,917 students in bilingual education. †
Between 1992 and 2006, Texas’ English Language Learner student population increased by 84 percent. Currently, 99 percent of the students enrolled in Texas bilingual education programs are Hispanic.
As Texas’ Hispanic population and immigrant population continues to grow, it is critically important that state leaders and policymakers look at the facts on how to best teach English to non-English speaking children.
The goal of any type of program teaching English to non-English speaking children should be learning English. Yet, opinions vary and tempers l are over which program—bilingual education or sheltered English immersion—teaches English most ef ectively. Sometimes the term “bilingual education” is used loosely to refer to any type of English teaching program. For the purposes of this study, bilingual education is dei ned as instruction provided to students in their native tongue in all subjects in a self-contained classroom with other students that speak the same language. English is typically taught by the bilingual education teacher. English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) instruction is dei ned as a program of small group English instruction by a certii ed ESL teacher whose students typically spend the rest of the day in a mainstream classroom. Sheltered English immersion is dei ned as instruction provided to students in English at a pace they can understand, taught by a trained ESL teacher, in a self-contained classroom with other students learning a second language.
Consider some key facts:
- Texas is one of only four states currently requiring bilingual education. The other three states are Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.
- Texas is one of only 10 states that have ever required bilingual education. The other nine states are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin.
- Bilingual education is more expensive ‡ than other programs and is the least educationally ef ective. (Bilingual education is more expensive than mainstreaming or sheltered English immersion, and is less ef ective.)
- Students in bilingual education are not required to be tested on the English TAKS for the first three years. Testing all English Language Learners in English is the best way to hold schools accountable for the English language acquisition of their students and an excellent way to give schools credit for the extraordinary job they do of teaching English and content such as math and science to non-English speaking students.
But even though the majority of bilingual-education students were exempted from testing, they scored 29% lower on reading, 30% lower on writing, and 25% lower on math. And yes, the lowest performing students are the ones not taking the test.
The report recommends that
Just to be clear, the cited (block quote or bullet point) portions are from the report; the rest are my commentary and summarization.
“Texas schools perform horribly according to standardized testing”
This is not true.
Disaggregate by race/ethnicity and Texas schools are some of the best in the US, according to the NAEP tests. This is the only test series that is properly comparable across the US.
Black kids in Texas do much better than black kids elsewhere in the US; the same is true for hispanic kids, white kids, asian kids.
Texas only scores relatively low overall because it is majority-minority in public school K-12.
There is no getting around the fact that demographics above all other factors drives test scores in aggregate, not management or methods or curriculum. These can improve things on the margin, and in this regard Texas has done rather well.
The number of students in Texas public schools that are not proi cient in English
Yet, opinions vary and tempers l are over which program
teaches English most ef ectively.
bilingual education is dei ned
English instruction by a certii ed ESL teacher
Maybe her own grasp of the language is part of the problem.
Let’s establish an official national language once and for all and we won’t have to screw around with bilingual education.
Perhaps it’s already too late to get the process started.
Actually, you are rather correct. Disaggregate on race/ethnicity and Texas does do quite well. But that’s because huge numbers of Texans are descended from Hispanics who have been in America for generations, whereas in most states a Hispanic is likely a recent immigrant. Disaggregate on national origin, however, and the reason for Texas’ poor scores comes into focus. Native-born citizens in Texas do well; Mexican immigrants do terribly.
This is exactly the point of the article: Texas’ poor scores are NOT due to any other factor than the horrible performance of Mexican immigrants. Whereas other states have abandoned bilingual education (California, Arizona) or only partly implemented it (New York, Colorado), Texas makes bilingual education the universal norm. And the test scores of those students, as the full report makes clear, is what drags Texan rankings down overall.
ELL are currently tested for English proficiency in Texas. It’s called the TELPAS test. We have to administer it every spring. In our district, ELLs are in immersion only for one year—after that, they are considered ESL, and are mainstreamed into regular classrooms.
Wow. Obviously, that’s more a problem of copying into and back out of .pdf documents. Still wierd.
Exactly. Texss kids when adjusted are performing among the best in the nation. Could they do better? Sure.
As for bilingual education, I guess they don’t want me teaching Latin along with English. :p
Your district is the exception. 70% of Texan ELLs are in bilingual education.
Interesting. I worked with a babe from El Paso who is 100% Hispanic and born in Mexico. She married a gringo and took his last name (like Smith, but not Smith, just a really common American last name). Her first name was also 100% American.
She was great to work with, very smart, and it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I even found out that she was Hispanic.
That is ABJECT FEAR of the Democrats. That Hispanics LEARN ENGLISH fluently, join the American mainstream, and no longer need the Democrats. She had done that...but then again, when she grew up in El Paso, the concept of Bi-Lingual Education (i.e., Spanish Language) didn’t exist...she HAD to learn English, and did.
Bottom line - Bilingual Education is meant to hold Hispanics down. Governor Perry, of course, cannot understand that, since it goes against the big business interests that he answers to - but Herman Cain fully understands it.
But its not just hispanic kids, however recent their origins.
Black, white and Asian kids also do better in Texas. And we are speaking of superior results to most of the Midwest, for these groups.
A better explanation for this situation would have to be some set of factors that apply to all.
As for California - Texas beats the pants off California, bilingual education notwithstanding, and it did so before and after California stopped it.
I’m not saying there isn’t some negative effect of bilingual education, most likely there is, its just that the effect is small enough to be invisible in state-by-state comparisons, swamped by other known and unknown factors, and if it can be proven it would have to be by a more specific study.
It isn’t destroying just Texas schools, but ALL of them. Ever since the left demanded that non-English speakers be mainstreamed in the classroom, everyone else has paid the price.
Test scores, achievement tests; every measure of our kids’ educational progress in school has been manipulated to make it appear that the schools are actually succeeding - something we all know is untrue.
Like every leftist social policy we are having to deal with today, this one is also a complete failure!!
And, yet - too many Americans still think that the Dem Party is in it FOR America!!
(shaking head)
Someday, we HAVE to learn that history is about more than dead people and events that happened a long time ago. We have failed to learn our history, learn the lessons that history teaches us, and it shows!!!
“Bilingual Education is meant to hold Hispanics down.”
And it does it very well. Here in NJ it was pushed to get more union slugs on the public school payrolls; integration or improvement were never the aim. In NYC they would force English-speaking children from Hispanic households into Spanish-language classes; an educational ghetto.
The Dems hold on Hispanics is tenuous at best because as they become productive, TAXPAYING members of our country they inevitably become more fiscally conservative; they are already more socially conservative. Everybody can point out examples of dependent trash (of which there is no shortage), but there is a growing Hispanic middle class (which is actually impossible to generalize) that won’t be held to the plantation.
Teaching Math In 1950
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?
Teaching Math In 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
Teaching Math In 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is $80. Did he make a profit?
Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is $80 and his profit is $20 Your assignment: Underline the
number 20.
Teaching Math In 1990
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and
inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the
preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of
$20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class
participation after answering the question: How did the birds and
squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong
answers.)
Teaching Math In 2011
Un ranchero vende una carretera de maderapara $100. El cuesto de la
produccion era $80. Cuantos tortillas se puede comprar?
But Texas has a heart!
If you actually read the report, you’d see that only Spanish English-language learners are put into bilingual education in Texas, for the most part. There are fewer than 1,000 Asians in BE.
And, yes, I’m acknowledging that Texas schools are better for whites and blacks, although I think you overstate your case slightly. In an otherwise strong school system, bilingual education is keepig a sizeable minority absolutely uneducated.
Cratered?
Hand that man a cigar!
Crater (v.)
To collapse, implode, as if due to total failure of internal structural integrity, or due to massive collision; to crash violently; to fail utterly; to form huge craters.
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