the new math: old battle of the lovees was: PDP1 3580

On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:24:17 -0400, "Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj"

Nor did I say you were. In fact, though, the vast majority of the learners in question (in this country, in this era) are Hispanic. There's no point in pretending they aren't. I could generalize and say that it's insulting to speakers of any language to presume that they are less capable. In California, proponents of bilingual education were even more insulting, declaring that students couldn't even learn English after a full year of special instruction.

This was also a controversial topic here in Arizona, but the voters spoke plainly - 65% vs 35% in favor of eliminating bilingual education. I don't know of any followup studies, and it's probably too early anyway.

Much of the controversy is between parties who are both right, but talking about different things. Both immersion and bilingual programs have failed and succeeded, depending on how they were conducted and how they were measured. One bad example - a California school district which taught children in non-English only through the sixth grade! Not a big surprise when they don't do well in seventh grade.

It isn't black and white.

-- Al Balmer Sun City, AZ