Prek Education In Texas

More young americans nowadays are being raised in homes speaking non-English, but these students are falling behind in schools where there is not a bilingual program available. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in schools without a bilingual education program, 71% of English speakers are at or above the basic requirements for fourth grade reading while merely 30% of non-English speakers reach this level. 35% of English and 8% of non-English speakers reach proficient reading levels while only 9% of English and 1% of non-English speakers perform at advanced levels. It’s evident that the availability of a bilingual program is crucial to the success of an individual who needs the resources that can be given to them through the use of bilingual education. The percentages of the non-English speaking students previously mentioned could undoubtedly be comparable to those percentages of the English speaking students if the education they were being provided with was cohesive to their comfortability, and the material being taught was in a language they could better understand.

It is important in the United States to have a competitive workforce, and a great way to do that is to have a society of learners that can communicate with people of other cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Although there are efforts for teaching school children other languages, most programs are primitive at best, left to be forgotten before the skills reach the point of relevancy. Dual language programs should be established in the US wherever feasible to give parents, at the very least, the choice to expand the minds of their children. Recent years have seen the inclusion of voluntary language immersion programs in places such as Athens, Georgia, in which students are taught from Kindergarten in two languages. These are steps in the right

The greatest concern of mandating “English only” schools in California for example is that 80 percent of the population of students is Latino. Miner further explains, “Good bilingual programs are about more than learning a language, it should be about respect for diversity and multiculturalism (Bilingual Education, 1999).”

Texas falls back to the three groups that make up the population, the Anglos or whites, the African Americans, and the Latinos. There are different opinions between the Anglos and the Latinos concerning the language that should be used in the schools. The Latinos believe that the use of bilingual education helps the students transition from Spanish-speaking to English-speaking and leads to better instructions in the schools. Most of the Anglos oppose this policy leaving and ethnic divide within the state. The Latinos usually have less of an education and also have the highest dropout rate of high schools’ students. Economic factors along with social issues within the state has also contributed to the low voter turnout.

From the “District Profile Reports -TEXAS HOUSE DISTRICT 115 ACS 2010-2014 Estimates”, data showed in Texas House District 115, total population is 180,798. Percentage of 0-4 years: 7.5%, 5-17years: 18.1%, 18-64 years: 66.4%, 65years and over: 8.0%. Among the population 5 years and over, 55.6% speaks English only, 44.4% speaks other than English at home, and 8.1% population

At the beginning of the century, Bilingual education was not only absent in Texas public schools, it was illegal. The “English Only” law was passed in 1918. The law made it illegal for educators to use another language in classrooms and charged educators with a misdemeanor for using languages other than English in a classroom unless the class was a foreign language class. The apparent issue with the “English Only” law in Texas is that students could not understand their teachers and were not given a real opportunity to learn English. Texas still feels the weight of poor education policies that stayed far too long. Bilingual Education was illegal in Texas until 1969.

However, this issue would take far more than funding. The issue of bilingual education in our public school system is a much debated topic in this country, and especially in this state. The Education Topic over Bilingual Education in our School Systems Spanish-speaking populace has grown tremendously in these past decades, much of which have immigrated with Spanish as their only language. This has left the public school system with an interesting problem; how to successfully transition Spanish speaking students into an English environment. Public school systems have adopted an immersion program; where students learn English and other subjects in classrooms where only English is spoken (Parkay, 2013). Students are not necessarily aided, they are required to learn like their peers from the teacher and ask for direction when needed in English. This program might aid some fast learners, but students who do not adapt to English; which is a foreign language to them, are left to learn on their own. If the student does not get the

English should not be declared Texas' official language. If English were to be declared as the official state language, I feel that it would be very limiting for the state. Although some argue that by declaring it official it will be an incentive for all the non-english speakers to learn English at a faster pace. Even though that might be true, it could also become detrimental for English speaker's education. Therefore people not only need to learn English, but also learn other languages that would help the state grow as a whole. The state of Texas has a very diverse population that for the most part speaks English, therefore, Texas' unofficial language is English, there is no need to make it law. We are told that in a few years the population's

Furthermore, Vonderlack-Navarro suggest another beneficial way to support English language learners is to involve parents in the students’ education. Because of the language barriers, education levels, and culture, this goal will not be a stress-free assignment; however, once the parents have “buy-in” and trust the school systems, the goal would be accomplished (Stover,

Being fairly spread out, Texas’ distribution from 2010(the latest study for demographics)was 45.3% white American people, 37.6% Hispanic, 11.8% African American, 10.5% other races, 3.8% Asian, The majority of American population consists of English, German, and African Americans and Hispanics. Out of these races, their

Over the years, there has been an issue I Texas, but the main issue that has been going around is education in the public school’s system. In the pubic schools of Texas there are many problems that a student faces. The three main reasons are that some teachers don’t know how to speak English properly, some kids from private schools go to public schools, and finally there is no push from the teachers to help the students. These are the issues in which some students drop out or just do not try. In some schools in the state of Texas there are many types of teachers that could be from others countries or different background and that is ok, but if they don’t know to speak English properly then it ill be hard for the student to understand the teacher

“Following the Immigration Act of 1965, legislation was passed to contribute the public schools in dealing with the influx of non-English-speaking students. Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 supported programs for educating these students, including transitional bilingual education programs” (Echevarria and Graves 2011, p.350). This Act did not fully articulate how to go about educating these students, so an unclear message was received or not received in whether there was going to be a process of their first languages or a complete transition to English. “The outcome was that most ELs were consigned in English-only classrooms without suitable

It is not impossible for schools to involve the parents of their ELL students, they must demonstrate to the parents and students that they are valued members of the school community. There has been considerable amounts of research on the importance and benefits of working closely with the parents of ELL students and how income and social class are strong predictors of how families relate to schools. For example, low income or non-English speaking parents may leave big decisions regarding school up to the teachers because of their expertise and the parents potential lack of. In a study

Diverse cultures within the United States are rapidly developing and growing and the educational sector is the number one target to ensure that English –learners are receiving adequate education. Within the educational sector there are administrators and teachers who are involved in students lives on a daily basis to ensure that education is equal. In order to achieve the vital objective of equality, socio-cultural influences on ELL students, bilingualism and home language use, parental and community resources, and partnerships between families and schools all have to be considered to provide an opportunity for equal education.

Sycamore Community School District 427 is a well rounded school district for the amount of ELs that are within the community. With the small number of ELs, it poses a challenge on the administration on how to best service the student body to give them the best educational experience possible to help them thrive inside and outside of school. The school demographics being majority white and English speaking, and the ELs of a very diverse background, poses a challenge on creating two-way dual language programs in the district which would benefit the students most. According to The Bilingual Advantage, “Even if children and adolescents are not fully proficient in their primary language, enabling students to use their