Immigration and English-Only Instruction

Link:  http://educationnext.org/2017-ednext-poll-school-reform-public-opin...

The rancorous national debate over immigration policy has touched most aspects of civic life, including education policy. To see where the public stands, we asked questions about visa programs for highly specialized workers, federal aid to school districts impacted by immigration, and the desirability of instructing immigrants and students with limited English proficiency in their native language.

Visas for specialized workers. Currently, the U.S. government provides up to 85,000 visas each year to highly educated immigrants identified by American businesses for employment in the United States. Some say that these visas are necessary for filling vital jobs. Others say they take jobs away from American college graduates.

After providing respondents exactly this information, we asked them whether the number of such visas should be increased, decreased, or kept about the same. Only 15% of the public would increase that number. The remainder are evenly divided between the 42% who would cut the number of visas and the 43% who would keep it at its current level.

Federal aid to impacted schools. States with large numbers of immigrants have repeatedly petitioned the federal government for help with the cost of educating their children. Former Arizona state superintendent of education John Huppenthal, for example, has insisted that “it is unreasonable to ask Arizona schools and Arizona taxpayers to pay for these expenses.” On this question, the public divides almost exactly in twain: 39% of respondents support, but 43% oppose “the federal government providing additional money to school districts with large numbers of immigrant children.” Again, a substantial partisan divide surfaces: 55% of Democrats like the idea, as compared to just 20% of Republicans.

English-only instruction. According to Jim Cummins, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, children’s levels of performance in a second language depend on their ability to speak their native tongue. Many educators agree, but according to Rosalie Pedalino Porter, writing in the Atlantic, “the accumulated research of the past thirty years reveals almost no justification for teaching children in their native languages to help them learn either English or other subjects.”

To gauge public views on this issue, we asked people whether immigrant children “who are not proficient in speaking English should initially be placed in English- speaking classrooms” or “initially be placed in classrooms taught in their primary language.” Two thirds of our respondents oppose initial instruction in the native tongue for immigrants (Figure 9).

A clear majority of Hispanics (59%) also favor initial instruction in the English language. However, we do not find evidence that people react against native instruction for immigrants in particular. When the question does not specifically refer to immigrants, the proportions for and against remain largely unchanged for the public as a whole. Among Hispanics, 54% favor initial instruction in the English language, slightly fewer than the percentage favoring that policy when immigrants are not mentioned.