emc/h1-b

[trlists at clayst.com]

On 26 Jun 2003 Jerry Feldman wrote:

> I think we have gotten a bit off the original topic, but...
> With bilingual education, it is required that non-english speakers be
> taught in their native language. In esscence, a Xiang (eg one of China's
> languages) speaking person arrives in Ma (before 2003), and the school
> system must provide that person with a bilingual education. 

> There was no real effort to teach that person how to communicate
> properly in English. 

I don't want to go too far into this on this group, but these 
statements are not correct.  There are real issues here, and there were 
indeed bilingual programs that needed reform.  But a lot of total myths 
were propagated during the debate over the law and these are some of 
them.

For example, the requirement on the school system for a single 
individual was and still is ESL support, not bilingual ed.  Bilingual 
ed kicked in when there were some number of students (20 or more?) from 
the same language group.  And bilingual programs do teach English, in 
fact that is a key goal.  Many do so very successfully -- some are not 
as successful, but the ones with problems were touted as representative 
of all programs by those supporting the new law.  As a result good 
programs and bad ones alike were discarded.

 ----------
 Tom Rawson