Ebonics and Bilingual Education
KQED Commentary
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
1.1.1997
by Lance T. Izumi, Fellow in California Studies
Pacific Research Institute
January 1997
Announcer lead: Time for Perspectives. Lance Izumi says that the ebonics debate points out problems with bilingual education. Over the past few weeks, the ebonics debate has dominated an otherwise slow news season. Everyone has weighed in with their opinion. Jesse Jackson, in fact, has given several opinions which haven't been strong on consistency. The problem with the ebonics controversy is that people are missing the bigger picture. The real issue regarding ebonics has to do with the wisdom of bilingual education in general. Indeed, a key reason the Oakland school board approved its ebonics policy in the first place was to get additional bilingual education money from the state and federal governments. The trouble is that bilingual education in California continues to be a huge failure. Today there are more than a million students in the state's public education system who are limited English proficient, that is, English isn't their first language. Yet, less than 10 percent of these children are transitioned into English proficiency every year. The government school system is therefore producing hundreds of thousands students who will never be able to speak English well enough to function optimally in a modern technological economy. Why is this? Much of the reason has to do with the bias of the education establishment in favor of so-called "native language" instruction. Under this method, students' native language is used to instruct students in academic courses, while they take separate classes in the English language. According to Professor Christina Rossell of Boston University, "native language" instruction is less effective than methods where academic courses for limited English proficient students are taught in standard English. This makes sense since students only learn English as fast as the incentives require them to. Would Oakland conduct academic courses in ebonics and have separate standard English classes for students? If they want bilingual education money, then that's what could happen. As one can see, combining ebonics with bilingual education grafts a silly idea onto an ineffective program. With a perspective, I'm Lance Izumi.
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