19. The Reinvention of Bilingual Education in America’s Schools

 Lately, Hispanics have been the center of many debates and protests in the United States. First there is the whole matter of illegal immigration (crossing the border between Mexico and the US) and then there is the speculation of "unfair treatment" of Hispanics in the American communities. This particular article talks about how schools have been playing a role in the whole "fair treatment" for Hispanics who live in the United States. The author introduces readers to a school in New Mexico, Sunland Park Elementary School, where bilingual programs are reinforced into students' daily education. (This particular elementary school is composed of mostly Hispanic children, who have some kind of Spanish-speaking background.) The counterintuitive thing is that Sunland Park Elementary School focuses more on teaching its children the Spanish language rather than English. The reason why parents have sent their children to this school was for them to learn and enhance the English language to live better in the United States, and not for them to know their "mother language" even better. The author then mentions that other schools around the nation are trying out this bilingual programs in their educations, however learning from the mistakes of Sunland Park Elementary School's way of enhancing the program, they have "divided" the program equally, teaching students equal amounts of English and Spanish. The author then leaves readers with a note saying that enforcing extra languages in children's education is essential to their intellectual development.
 Sarah Carr, the author of the article, maintains a firm stance throughout her article- showing that she is against schools enforcing the bilingual program if they are going to focus on one language more than the other. What makes the article interesting to read are the hints of irony in regard to the "counterintuitiveness" of a school consisting a majority of Hispanics teaching more Spanish than English. I personally found that this topic was a good one to write about, especially today, since Hispanics face many consequences and criticisms when living in the United States. Writing about children in the article also gave readers a chance to see this problem from a more innocent perspective; what bad can children do? It helps readers see that many Hispanics do not deserve the harsh treatment that they receive nowadays from Americans.  Overall, Sarah Carr did a neat job of showing her side of the debate and informing readers about the problems all whilst telling a story of a simple elementary school in New Mexico.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2015/01/05/bilingual_education_the_promise_of_dual_language_programs_for_spanish_speaking.html