Trilingualism in the public schools, OMW!!

El Prat (Barcelona, Spain) -

Public money can be used to successfuly cater to the desires of those who came of age in post-Franco Spain. Recently, I visited a primary school in the outer city limits of Barcelona and was impressed by the cultural presence of the Catalan language which was once banned here by the Spanish government.

According to the curriculum coordinator at Josep Tarradellas Elementary School, during the course of a 35 hour school week, students are offered the equivalent of three hours each of English and Castilian Spanish with the remaining instructional hours assigned to Catalan. The impact of multiculturalism requires that public education serve the traditional student as well as the newcomer whom is also instructed in all three languages. It appears that this particular institution is doing a fare job of responding to the changing needs of its' residents.

School personnel are very proud of this fact as evidenced by the tour I received upon arriving here. The school headmaster eagerly touted the enrichment courses offered through public education like technology, religion, music and fine arts. I asked the headmaster if offering religion in the public school system was problematic to parents. ¨Spain has been Catholic for over 500 years and those who don´t want religious education can opt out [sic],¨ he offered. In contrast, the American school system generally does not allow for the inclusion of religious education in a public school setting. U.S. Schools have a variety of religions to represent and I would hate the task of meeting everyone´s needs for religious education. Sunday school in all of its' encarnations is fine by me. What factors impact the ability of bilingual schoolchildren in the US to receive a varied and quality public school education?

From my experience as a bilingual instructor, it is my opinion that the accountability movement in education has been harmful and has single-handedly helped to erode bilingualism in the public schools. Bilingual children in the U.S. are unfortunately impacted by NCLB legislation and its' requisite high-stakes testing. Thus, the achievement of dual-literacy is downplayed for fear of an educational backlash. American students are held accountable for showing improvement in their performance on an English test, a language in which they are instructed in only 50% of the time. In contrast, students at Tarradellas elementary school are not impacted by the accountability movement in education and thus are free to receive small group instruction which honors the value of the Castilian, Catalan, and now English languages. Good job Tarradellas!