Part 3: 1950-1980 (Separate and Unequal)
Bilingual education initially started in the United States because of the rise in immigration. And among the immigrants would be children that needed to be enrolled in the public school system in order to obtain an education. The majority of those children, regardless of them being born in the US or abroad, were raised in a home where a language other than English was primarily spoken. So when it came time to go to class and learn from the teacher, there was an obstacle/barrier in regards to communication because they didn’t speak the same language; so the concept of providing bilingual education to these students started. It also has to do with trying to force these children to assimilate to the American way, in terms of speaking and mannerisms. It’s like they were trying to make it a negative thing that these kids spoke anything other than English like it made them somehow less American. The school/teachers did this by punishing the kids for speaking in their native tongue; the school system also disproportionately labeled these students as suitable for vocational studies instead of academics and considered them unintelligent, mainly because they wouldn’t score as well as the english speaking white childre in the standardized tests and intelligence tests (that weren’t designed for them anyway).
Certainly, you are right that immigrant children's home language was not regarded, respected or included in the public schools. However, much of the reforms of this period included addressing these issues, as you say, with educational reforms and laws such as the Bilingual Education Act.
ReplyDeleteAnother huge, seismic reform was the racial integration of the schools, both through the courts (Brown v. Bd. of Ed) , as well as with federal investment in the schools via the Elementary and Secondary Educational Act (1965) which helped to incentivize reforms such as desegregation, gender equity (Title IX, 1972), and inclusion of special needs/education into public education.