Bilingual Education as a Social Force

BILINGUAL EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL FORCE Ralph W. Yarborough The following article is based on an address given by Senator Yarborough before the joint conventions of the Modern Language Association and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, New York, N.Y., December 28, 1968, as published in Foreign Language Annals, March 1969. This is not going to be a scholarly presentation; it is not meant to be. Although United States Senators are said to have the rhetorical gifts required to sell refrigerators to Eskimos, monolingual Senators have not been accused of making pretensions of scholarship in the field of bilingualism at a meeting of eminent bilingual scholars. Rather, what I intend to do is share some of my thinking with you toward the end of providing a better life for Americans—in the hope that you will apply your scholarship and your knowledge and your experience to offer advice on appropriate courses of action. In my endeavors with the Bilingual Education Act of 1967, I received considerable assistance from many of you; and, for that reason, I think the Bilingual Education Act is destined for success. It was drafted, fought for, and passed because of a crying need among the three million school-age American children who come from non-English-speaking homes. To implement the Act, the first applications for grants are just beginning to come into the Office of Education, so it is too early to report on what is going to happen under the Act, but it is not too early to plan further for the future. Perhaps the most important single item that needs attention in the field of bilingual education is funding; money, plain and simple. The Congress authorized the expenditure, during fiscal 1968, of $15 million, but not one red cent was appropriated. The Congress authorized funding during fiscal 1969 of $30 million for the Bilingual Education Act; the Administration recommended a funding level of only $5 million; the House of Representatives on a 96-95 vote decided against any funding whatsoever. When the appropriations bill came over to the Senate, an appropriation of $10 million was obtained. In conference with the House that amount was compromised to the present figure of $7.5 million. You know, and I know, that $7.5 million is nothing but tokenism—that even if the full $30 million had been appropriated, it would make only a dent, but a very significant dent, in the problems faced by those more than three million children who are bruised and battered as they confront the language barrier. And so we need to work to get full funding this next year—$45 million—for bilingual education. That takes work; work by me and work by you. Members of Congress who make the decision about money need convincing by experts like you that money needs to be appropriated and expended for bilingual education. For these three million school children, if there is no bilingual education, there is little education of any sort. 70RMMLA BulletinJune 1969 Before suggesting possible amendments to the Bilingual Education Act itself, let us discuss another problem we have been working on—one that needs immediate consideration and action. The problem is a serious one; it is called the 1970 Census. Over the course of the past year, I have had repeated correspondence with Mr. Ross Eckler, Director of the Bureau of the Census, in an effort to have included in the 1970 Census a question concerning which language is currently spoken in the home if it is not English. The response from Mr. Eckler has been overwhelming; I have been overwhelmed with understanding and sympathy, but not with action. Mr. Eckler assures me that he does intend to run a special sampL· survey directed to this issue, but then adds that, because of the problems involved in administering the 1970 Census, the special sample survey will be delayed until after the 1970 Census has been taken. So, we are talking about years passing before we can get any kind of accurate assessment of the dimensions of the problem with which we are attempting to cope. Recently, I have taken this matter up with an authority...