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Notes
| 1. | Other Urban Legends include: Humphrey Bogart was the original Gerber baby on their baby food ads, and if the entire population of China jumped up at the same time, the US would be swamped by a tidal wave. They are not true. See www.urbanlegends.com for many others. |
| 2. | Bali may have been influenced by the fact that in 1998 those in bilingual education in Pasadena had slightly lower scores than English learners in other programs. This was probably because children with less English proficiency when entering school tend to be placed in bilingual rather than all-English classes. The only data in Bali's study that is properly statistically controlled are the gains made after all English learners were put in all-English classes. Those with previous bilingual education made better gains. This suggests that bilingual education prepared them better for all-English than all-English. We must, however, be cautious. The gains were small, and Bali presents no description of the kind of bilingual program Pasadena had, nor does she tell us very much about the all-English classrooms. What is clear is that her data does not support her conclusion that stopping bilingual education "actually helped." Rather, the data suggest that doing bilingual education helped. |
References
Asimov, N. (2000, Saturday, July 22). Test Scores Up, Test-Takers Down: Link between participation, improvement on school exam prompts concern. San Francisco Chronicle.
Bali, V. (2001). Sink or swim: What happened to California's bilingual students after Proposition 227? State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Spring, 2001: 295-317.
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