{"id":98535,"date":"2016-06-10T07:37:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T15:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=98535"},"modified":"2016-06-10T07:37:50","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T15:37:50","slug":"new-white-house-policy-promotes-ethnic-separation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=98535","title":{"rendered":"New White House Policy Promotes Ethnic Separation"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Heritage<\/a>: The Obama Administration last week unveiled new federal policy recommendations[1] that instruct states to support and encourage children to retain separate languages and cultural attachments. The policy was included in a joint policy statement[2] by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services (HHS). The Administration stresses that these are mere recommendations that \u201cdo not confer any legal obligations,\u201d but notes that failure to implement them may result in the loss of federal dollars.<\/p>\n

The statements observe that there exists a \u201cstubborn achievement gap\u201d between dual-language learners (DLLs) and their monolingual counterparts.[3] The former are \u201cbehind their peers\u201d in kindergarten, and experience \u201chigher high school and college drop-out rates.\u201d However, the Administration cites \u201ca growing body of research,\u201d which it says indicates that multilingualism confers all sorts of \u201ccognitive and social advantages.\u201d The reason for the mismatch between the promised potential in the cited studies and the observed facts on the ground is due to \u201cthe quality of experience [the DLL children] are currently receiving,\u201d it says. \u201cNot recognizing children\u2019s cultures and languages as assets may also play a role in the achievement gap\u201d because of the \u201clow social prestige of minority languages,\u201d say the statements.<\/p>\n

The Administration maintains that the solution is to preserve these differences and recommends that early childhood programs nurture the \u201ccultural and linguistic assets of this population of children.\u201d It advises that states follow this path by such approaches as creating curricula and educational early childhood systems that \u201csupport children\u2019s home language development\u201d as well as English, employing credentialed bilingual staff, and communicating with the family in their primary language. Kindergarten entry assessments must be \u201cculturally appropriate\u201d and administered by professionals who speak the children\u2019s home language. To ensure that teachers are \u201clinguistically and culturally responsive\u201d the states are urged to collaborate with Hispanic-serving institutions, or universities that serve immigrants and their children. Tolerance of and respect for cultural differences is not enough, say the recommendations. Early childhood programs must \u201cembrace and celebrate their diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Administration identifies four types of classroom models: (1) Dual immersion, (2) native language with English support, (3) English with native-language support, and (4) English only. The Administration encourages No. 2 as \u201cthe most feasible in programs where most of the DLLs in a program speak a common language at home,\u201d and discourages No. 4 because \u201cDLLs are less likely to receive the benefits discussed above.\u201d It cited as reasons for action high numbers of immigrants and a globalized world. \u201cThe growing diversity of our nation\u2019s children requires that we shift the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Heritage: The Obama Administration last week unveiled new federal policy recommendations[1] that instruct states to support and encourage children to retain separate languages and cultural attachments. The policy was included in a joint policy statement[2] by the Departments of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98536,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98535\/revisions\/98536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}