Jessenia Pineda

By Jessenia Pineda

The BPS district is very diverse. Almost one in every two students speaks a language other than English at home.[1] However, according to the BPS website, only five of 125 schools in the system offer dual-language programs.[2] There’s an inequality within the BPS system because there aren’t enough dual-language opportunities for the students whose first language is not English. More dual-language schools will bring an increased amount of benefits to all students who are in the Boston Public School system–not only the non-English speakers.

According to Julie Calderone, Director of World Languages in the BPS, students who are fluent in more than one language tend to have better opportunities, stronger cultural communication skills, and better community relationships. These skills lead to a better understanding of cultural differences. Becoming a dual-language student gives an important advantage to all students. Dual-language students will have superior cultural communication skills to a non-dual-language person. Broader language skills help decrease the amount of communication impediments and create a stronger cultural bond in our communities.[3] Boston Public School communities are populated with people from different cultural backgrounds which makes it very important to provide dual-language schools to meet their needs. This is one way to resolve conflicts between cultures in our city and improve communication between each other.

An examination of Boston’s Public Schools conducted in 2000 and 2009, showed increases in out-of-school suspensions, grade retention, and dropout rates for most of the five largest non-English-speaking language groups after Massachusetts restricted bilingual education.”[4] Across the country where there are more dual-language programs, the success rates for students are higher. In their article “Bilingual Education: Reviving an American Tradition” Stanford Professor Claude Goldenberg and educator Kirstin Wagner write, “In Massachusetts, the achievement gap has increased somewhat in both grade levels. In contrast, in the country as a whole, where general bilingual instruction remains an option, the reading achievement gap has decreased by nearly a grade level in fourth grade and has decreased slightly in eighth grade.”[5] They also maintain that “instruction in a student’s home language can improve achievement in English.”[6] Students in dual-language schools are more comfortable in their schools and fit in better so they don’t feel excluded or left out. As the evidence shows, they also are likely to learn better and if that’s the case they will feel more successful and less likely to drop out.

Job opportunities increase with dual-language skills as well. Many companies are looking for employees who speak more than one language. Gabriela Kruschewsky maintains that, “In addition, it’s no secret that employers see language skills as a benefit for a prospective employee. There’s one qualification that employers can’t seem to get enough of, and that’s fluency in a foreign language:”[7]

The advantage of dual-language education is that it opens doors in many ways. More than half of the world population is bilingual.[8] Speaking other languages allows you to view the world differently. “We live in an increasingly globalized world where many cultural subtleties can slip through the cracks as we’re trying to understand past each other’s different dialects. Allowing yourself to be immersed in another language means opening the door to an entirely new culture and way of viewing the world.”[9] Not only does bilingual education help expand a students’ perspectives; it helps keep them connected to their families and heritage.[10]

According to Julie Calderone, these dual-language programs should start at a younger age where they are being fully emerged in the language being taught.[11] She states that full immersion in a language is the key to many opportunities. More dual-language schools mean more communication, more job opportunities, change in mindset and academic success for these students.

  1. “Facts, Figures and Reports,” Boston Public Schools, accessed February 24, 2016, http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/domain/238. ↑
  2. “English Language Learners.” / Dual Language/Two Way Bilingual Programs,” Boston Public Schools, accessed February 24, 2016, http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Page/5735. ↑
  3. “Advocacy: Who Benefits,” American Council on the Teaching for Foreign Languages, accessed March 02, 2016, http://www.actfl.org/advocacy/who-benefits#sthash.EeZq0vgf.dpuf. ↑
  4. Claude Goldenberg and Kirstin Wagner, “Bilingual Education: Reviving an American Tradition,” American Educator 39, no. 3 (2015): 28. ↑
  5. Ibid. ↑
  6. Ibid. ↑
  7. Gabriela Kruschewsky, “6 Multilingual Benefits That You Only Get If You Speak Another Language,”Huffington Post. June 2, 2014, accessed November 30, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/02/multilingual-benefits_n_5399980.html. ↑
  8. Ibid. ↑
  9. Ibid. ↑
  10. Ibid. ↑
  11. Julie Caldarone, in discussion with author, January 16, 2016. ↑