Bilingual Ed Lobby Promotes Divisive Agenda, Says English Advocate
by Jim Brown
February 24, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Virginia-based group that advocates making English America's official language is criticizing a report on the English proficiency of immigrant children in California.A report by the state's Legislative Analyst's Office finds that native Spanish-speaking students are among the slowest to learn English of all immigrant children in California, taking an average of nearly seven years to master the language.
However, Jim Boulet, executive director of English First, says that report, although new, had to have been "written by dinosaurs." He believes its findings are based on old material that has been disproved time and time again.
"The minute you hear someone say it takes seven years to learn English, you know that they're really not interested in a person learning English," Boulet says. "What they're interested in doing is preserving that child's ancestral language and culture."
Boulet says in a world in which a non-native speaker can go to Berlitz and become fluent in Spanish in 30 days, "it is ludicrous to say that it takes seven years to learn English." He asserts that an intensive English immersion program can help immigrant students master the language in as little time as six months to a year.
The English First spokesman says the report by the Legislative Analyst's Office is intended to please proponents of bilingual education, whose lobby, he notes, has a large financial stake in children not learning English. But he feels that those pushing bilingual education are forwarding a regrettable agenda.
"It's a shame really," Boulet says, "because this country is a nation of immigrants. We have enough problems as it is without being divided on the basis of language. And saddest of all, the bilingual education lobby is keeping children from learning English when everyone knows it is easier for a child to learn English than for an adult."
English First is a national organization founded in 1986 to work toward the goals of making English the official language of the United States, giving every child in America the chance to learn English, and eliminating costly, ineffective multi-lingual programs and policies.
