I like your phrase "reversion to unilingual"- that's exactly what's happening.
We are so fixated on the appearance of success in school, that we ignore the consequences to the students (and eventually to our society). The dropout rate for Hispanic immigrants is very high here in Texas. IMO, our growing "bilingualism" is the kind that discourages the learning of English because it's enabling immigrants to get by with their Spanish day-to-day, and they are NOT becoming bilingually proficient at all. The problem with this that we aren't really a bilingual country. English IS the dominant language- (and SHOULD be, imo- we are just too big and too diverse to allow it not to stay our official language). COnsequently, those who insist on the bilingual forms, and signs, and tests, so that they don't HAVE to learn English, are defeating themselves eventually. Almost any work you have done here (roofing, building, pools, yard) is done by a group of people with no English skills at all. While it would be desirable for all our students to learn two languages side by side and we should encourage it, it is critical that Hispanic students learn English to succeed or they will forever be stuck in the lower levels of the economic workforce.
The upsetting thing about that story is that in the pursuit of test scores, we have placed this need second to some temporary, shallow appearance of success. |
