Chapter 14, 15
Session no. 12
Crawford explains in Chapter 14 that “No child left Untested” because the history and the laws affected Bilingual education. According to the observation of the Crawford, there is still much space to work in order to improve the programs of Bilingual education. An attack on the education of bilingual was preposition 227. The strategies are not able to handle the improvement and implementation of the programs to improve English of the new learners. On the other hand, groups like California Association for Bilingual Education made efforts to support the learning programs. These kinds of groups provided the training to ESL and bilingual teachers to learn English but there was no output. There are number of factors that affect the process of the learning and progress of English learners like lack of the train staff, unequal resources, curriculum, and immigrant’s student’s expectations and also the lack of the interest by students. The institutions have to undergo big reforms to include teachers input communities, students and parents in order to improve the bilingual programs better.
The Regan administration in 1983 had made many attempts to make or improve the bilingual programs and the education of English that put or released nation at risk. In addition, no Child left behind in these programs. On the other hand, politicians restrain or opposed the released attempt to reform schools by NCLB. Unz had no educational background that voted for the proposition 227. The problem was that how students or children pass the test of state when the test was not made on level of the students. In addition to this, the test was not base on the living years in this country. In addition, the students did not show any progress in their performance because tests are a conducted to observe the abilities of students. The teacher plays an important role in the learning process of the native and non-native students. The tests are just to know about the approach of the students that how much they know about each subject. Moreover, the students are not able to pass the English test by the state because they were not provided the material for the test.
As discussed in last chapters, the proposition 227 was not base on the knowledge about bilingual education and the vote was not for the proposition 227. On the other hand, parents were against the education of the bilingual as they did not informed accurately about the bilingual programs that are to be blamed for the low test scores of the students. The vote was for the mandate of the strict English only. In addition, one of the reasons that parents were in favor of the bilingual education programs is the early education programs that exist. Therefore, they voted the proposition 227. The English instruction was in favor of the students. Besides this, the parents have lack of the information and education therefore, they were voted for the programs of English acquisition. This was just because of the misunderstanding of methods of teaching. An effective way to develop and improve the academic English skills is the bilingual gradual exit model that was proved by the research on the long run. This was also beneficial for the fluency and literacy in two different languages.
Often the teaching of the two languages was seen as negative. Specifically, the people voted only for the pro-English only initiatives in states of Arizona, California and Massachusetts. This has been proved that the level of the confusion of the voters on the Education English Learners and the subject matter. Lots of people voted pro bilingual classes that were offered in public school. Therefore, they voted for the instruction to be taught only in English. In addition, these different percentages contrast each other that people or voters did nit has so much knowledge about this topic as they can be. Overall the voters were confused therefore, some voted in favor and some against the bilingual education.
However, the position was not successful and reverse later that they did allow the families to select the bilingual education with help of waiver provisions. In addition, the school administration and teachers were confused that they were violating the mandate of English-Only. The students were not allowed to speak their native langue like Spanish or others. Finally, this mandate did not have the desired results therefore, reserves and advocates of language of many students. Moreover, this was the weakness of the bilingual programs.