Bilingual Education Controversy

Bilingual education is unquestionably a controversial issue. There are several people and organizations in this country, who, for various reasons are opposed to bilingual education. In today’s society regarding education there has been a big issue about whether bilingual education should be taught in classrooms for immigrant students who do not speak English. Bilingual education began about 1967 as an effort to help immigrants, (mostly Spanish speakers) to learn English (Hoover, Bilingual Education Advocates). Bilingual Education involves teaching two languages to the students. Many persons believe that bilingual education means Spanish and English only, but bilingual could be any two languages. There is a common problem where many parents are against bilingual education because many students are forced into Spanish bilingual classes because they have Spanish surnames, even though they understand and speak English well and they do not speak or read Spanish (Hoover, Bilingual Education Advocates). I have found throughout my studies in bilingual education that a lot of students are placed in bilingual classes because the parents fill
But one of the most common bilingual programs here in South Texas is Spanish and English. A research states that “Nearly one in every six school age children in the United States come from a home where a language other than English is regularly spoken” (Eva Giles). “By some estimates, English is spoken today by one million people and two thirds learned it as a second language” (James Crawford). Secretary of Education T.H. Bell remarked that the support of the government for bilingual education grew from $7.5 million in 1969 to $134 million in 1982 and it provides help for between 1.2 million to 3.5 million children (Hoover, The case for and against Bilingual