Oceanside's bilingual program, it seems, failed to provide any exposure to English in the early stages. This explains why Oceanside's test scores showed so much improvement, especially for the youngest children, when English was introduced. Recent developments also reveal why scores in neighboring Vista, a district that maintained bilingual education, were not as impressive. According to a recent report in Education Week, Vista erroneously lumped a large number of high scoring limited English students with its fluent English speaking population. This had the effect of artificially lowering the average for limited English proficient children.
Bilingual education is supported by both theory and practice.
Teaching subjects in the first language in early stages gives children subject matter knowledge, and makes subject matter instruction in English much more comprehensible. If a child knows history, thanks to instruction in the first language, a history class taught in English will be much more comprehensible, resulting in more history and more English language development. And providing literacy in the first language is a short-cut to English literacy. Well-designed studies confirm the effectiveness of bilingual education. We should examine these studies and not rely on hasty analyses of faulty test score data.