Response to Education Week Article

Several months ago Education Week published an article entitled, Bilingual Ed, Immersion Found to Work Equally Well.  It was referenced in a conversation as evidence that a dual language model wasn't really necessary (or any more effective than English immersion), so I sent the following to a number of people involved in the conversation as follow up to the reference that had been made.


I know bilingual education can be a pretty emotionally charged topic and that different approaches to serving ELLs are critical since we serve student populations with different demographics, needs, challenges, etc,  but I wanted to pass along the Education Week article (and related study) that we referenced during yesterday’s meeting.  I think it’s fantastic to have tough conversations and even intense debates over this issue, especially given our shared mission and the language background of so many of our students.  If anyone in the country should have an opinion or expertise about the best ways to get low-income ELLs ready for college, it should definitely be our organization!

The article summarizing the Johns Hopkins study was published in Education Week a couple of months ago.  The comments posted below the online article are really interesting—I encourage you to read at least a few.  Several help point out some things that aren’t made super obvious in the Ed Week article.  When you go to the article link you can also download the actual study itself.  The abstract makes clear that it’s a comparison of English Immersion and Transitional Bilingual Ed programs both using the same reading program (not—contrary to what the Ed Week article implies—a comparison of English immersion to ALL bilingual ed models). 

The findings in this study are actually 100% consistent with what other studies have been showing for some time now--that the specific bilingual model we choose does matter (not all bilingual models are created equal!) and that early transitional bilingual ed models tend to lead to short & long-term results very similar to English immersion--neither close the achievement gap between monolingual English speakers and ELLs.  Additive (vs. transitional or "subtractive") approaches have shown the greatest promise for closing the achievement gap between ELLs and monolingual English speakers.  It’s also important to remember that most research shows that the lasting effects of elementary immersion or a particular bilingual model on English reading achievement aren’t typically super evident until middle or high school.

I’m also attaching (for anyone interested) a pretty extensive overview of Thomas & Collier’s approach to studying ELLs’ achievement as well as their famous study in HISD—both provide some interesting ideas & findings that could also become a part of our bilingual ed/ELL discussions.  Thomas & Collier help point out that second language acquisition in the primary grades is never just about language...it’s also about cognitive development, sociocultural identity, content-specific academic achievement, etc.  “Dual language” as a rigid program is definitely not, in and of itself, the silver bullet that makes all the difference in closing the ELL achievement gap, but it highlights some fundamental understandings about language & ELL achievement that, arguably, are.  I encourage you to look through some of these documents as well as we each decide how to best serve the ELLs on our respective campuses.   Hope something here is useful!

Here's a quick comparison of the different major bilingual ed models and the resulting student achievment outcomes for each, based on Thomas & Collier's work: