I thought that the Crawford article was a reasonable attempt to give a fairly objective review of the evolution of federal policy from indifference to the education of ELP learners, through a period of federal activism for bilingual education, and then ending in a reverse of course to a position hostile to bilingual education in general. I say that Crawford was fairly unbiased in the article, but I did take exception to one pretty poor argument that I discuss further in the next section. In any case, I thought that this reading was very appropriate for this course, because I think it is very important to know the recent history of educational trends.
One thing the article could use
though is a little broader political
context. People need to remember in the late 70s there was a
pretty broad perception of failure of President Johnson's "Great
Society" ideal. In particular, the welfare system of the time
was
perceived as creating an underclass of people who had become dependent
upon abusing the system - creating an anti-work attitude and fueling
gangs and crime. This created a popular backlash that has
unfortunately helped to empower the conservative movement for the last
25 years. In that context, I think title VII etc. is viewed
by
some as just another attempt by the government to intervene in a way
that is well intentioned but which leads to a worse result than forcing
immigrants to "fit in." I can't say that this is a totally
valid
view, but I can understand how the welfare abuses of the past have made
people wary of how government programs meant to help can create long
term issues. In that same vein I'll admit to still being
somewhat
on the fence about the value of prolonged bilingual education (as
opposed to transitional bilingual education - which seems clearly
positive), and I'm going to need to see some concrete data about
program effectiveness and side effects (with appropriate vetting on
both sides of the issue), before I'm ready to settle on one side or the
other.
I thought the Sanders article,
on the other hand, was a waste of
class time. Why would a two year old article on a legislative
proposal (that I assume never really got anywhere) be considered
appropriate material for a long lead item like a textbook?
Offbeat ideas get discussed by congressional committees all the time
without ever even getting on the floor for a vote - so it's hard to see
how one particular instance of such is representative of some kind of
political trend that is worth studying. My apologies if my
skepticism seems extreme, but I see this kind of reporting in the news
all the time, getting people riled up over political changes that never
even really happen, and it's kind of a sore point for me. I
feel
that there are enough real issues in the world worth discussing without
using extremists with no power as stalking horses.
By the way, I have a pretty strong disagreement with Crawford's assessment on page 72 that "there is a popular misconception of Title VII as a heavy-handed federal mandate rather than a voluntary grant program." That statement, whether in the service of a position I agree with or not, is frankly complete and utter nonsense. In a sense, the money for Title VII comes from the states (even if the money happens to come directly from the citizens of the state in the form of personal income tax), but the money is only returned to the state if it follows the federal rules. Therefore if the state does not conform to the rules the citizens are in essence FINED by the federal government since they never again see the money they contributed. I would consider a multi-million dollar fine to be the very definition of "heavy handed."
Now states are facing a similar
choice of conforming to No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) or losing federal funds, so that once again states
are
essentially faced with relenting or paying a fine. The
difference is that this time it is the conservatives who are imposing
their ideals via blackmail. Frankly, since Californians pays
a
much higher share of these grant costs in income tax than we ever
receive back in grants, we might be better off if the whole federal
educational grant system were dismantled and the tax money returned to
the people - perhaps allowing for a higher state tax to be used as the
state sees fit.