Too often students are taught in foreign languages and not given the opportunity to learn English. Support networks should be there, but should be closely monitored. However, Heriberto Salas, acting affirmative action officer and human resources manager for the Worcester public schools, says many students from Worcester are doing very well in their lives and careers after bilingual education. Somewhere in between is the view of Christine A. Miller of Auburn, a member of the state Department of Education's council on bilingual education. You can't just say you're in favor or against bilingual education as it exists today.
Bilingual education is made up of different kinds of programs and levels.
Since she was appointed to the council a year ago, its members have grappled mostly with how to give the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test to students not fluent in English. Answers haven't come easily. But policy makers, she said, need to consider that students learn at different rates and in different ways. Under the Transitional Bilingual Education Act passed 27 years ago in Massachusetts, students affected spend much of their school time in separate classes taught partly in their native language, for up to three years. Proponents of such systems that gradually ease students into classes taught in English may consider themselves realists.