Bilingual Education Argumentative Essay

Bilingual education in the United States today is becoming more prevalent as there are thousands of different types of bilingual programs being implemented in elementary schools. The people who are pro bilingual education say it is beneficial for children with the cognitive and psychological benefits it provides; however, there is also a group of people who are completely opposed to bilingual education and think that it’s detrimental because children might stay in the program longer than they are supposed to and lose their native tongue. There is also a group of people who state that bilingual education is great, but has some negative aspects to it. For example, some parents might want to enroll their child in a bilingual program, but the language …show more content…
In the magazine article “Uneducated Bilingualism”, Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, argues that bilingual education for Hispanics was supposed to be helping children; however, “bilingual programs often devoted so little instruction time to English…children languished in bilingual classrooms for years on end” (106). Due to the fact that this is coming from a Hispanic’s point of view, many people would think that she would be for bilingual education and not against it. In the Race and Racism in the United States article, Yang states that bilingual education is unnecessary because “non-English-speaking European immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries succeeded without federally sponsored bilingual education programs” (116). Many people use this argument today as a reason why bilingual education should be opposed; the non-English speakers of today should learn how to speak the language the way that our ancestors had to learn. I will refute the parts of the argument that say bilingual education is completely detrimental, but will use the majority of it to help persuade the audience that there are negative aspects of bilingual