Logo
Donate
Logo
Donate

I Didn't Have Dual-Language Classes When I Immigrated. Maybe That's a Good Thing.

Jul 27, 2017 12:00:00 AM

by Alina Adams

Earlier this year, I wrote about dual-language programs in New York City schools, and  who really benefits from them. Is it the non-English speakers that Chancellor Carmen Fariña touts, or is it the already English-speaking children whose parents, when  shut out of Gifted and Talented programs, use the dual-language option to secure yet another leg up? I immigrated to the U.S/ at age 7, was put in an English-only class because English Language Learning (ELL) was not an option in that time and place, and was fluent within six months. I read the New York City Department of Education boasting that “approximately half of the students who entered kindergarten in New York City public schools as English-learner students were  reclassified within four years,” and I see nothing to cheer about. I have no doubt Fariña’s intentions are good. I don’t think she and Mayor de Blasio are sitting around City Hall, brainstorming ways to make New York City schools worse for under-served kids. But even the best intentions can misfire.

'Learning to Play the White Man's Game'

For instance, Malcolm Gladwell’s recent  Revisionist History podcast discussing the damage done to African-American children by Brown v. Board of Education, made me think of my African-American father-in-law. He grew up in Virginia under Jim Crow and, to this day, laments desegregation. “It ruined our Black schools,” he tells me. “They took the best Black teachers away.” Gladwell addresses the decimation of the Black teacher corps in his  podcast, and the value of teachers of color is covered  here. My father-in-law eventually left Virginia and moved to New York City, where he sent his own three children to the best schools he could. It was not a straightforward process and, giving credit where it’s due, it was his wife who did the work. She got her daughter and one son into Manhattan’s most exclusive school for the gifted. (I wrote about this school  here, which, despite popular misconceptions, is closer to a charter than a traditional public school.) Obstacles included being asked at the admissions testing session, “How could a child like this know so much?” “He watches a lot of Sesame Street,” my mother-in-law retorted. But the school, which parents now  spend thousands of dollars prepping their kids for, didn’t live up to her expectations. We call it, The Highly Coveted School Not Good Enough For My Mother-In-Law. She thought her children were being patronized. So when an Upper East Side private school looking to join the 1970s offered her the opportunity to send her boys there, she pulled her son from the gifted school and, along with his brother, sent both to that bastion of privilege. Why did this family do it? Why did the man who still mourns the loss of his childhood all-Black schools send his children to integrate an all-white one? It was so, my brother-in-law recalls his father saying, they could “learn to play the White man’s game.” And there it is.

The Language of Privilege

When David Brooks wrote his much-maligned piece in The New York Times about how  we are ruining America, from which his silly sandwich anecdote is the only thing readers remember, this is what he was talking about. Brooks was arguing that affluent people are doing everything they can to keep those below them from achieving the same economic level, and that they are using education to do it. As someone who works in the field, I beg to differ. Many are working tirelessly to bring high-achieving schools to all kids, even if they disagree on the methodology (see: Farina, above). But that is not the point here. The point, better illustrated by  Robert Pondiscio in his rebuttal, is that:
There is a language of upward mobility in America. It has an expansive and nuanced vocabulary that it employs to nimbly navigate the world of organizations, institutions, and opportunities...It is the language of privileged parents, affluent communities, and elite universities…(But) you don’t learn that language in those places. They don’t let you in until or unless you demonstrate command of it.
And, in New York City, a dual-language program for ELLs is the place where those who need instruction in the language of privilege the most, are the least likely to get it. Which severely limits their upward mobility. Which, Brooks is correct, ruins us all.
An original version of this post appeared on New York School Talk as Do Dual Language Programs Keep The Language of Privilege From Kids Who Need It Most?.
Photo by @UsachevEvgeny, Twenty20-licensed.

Alina Adams

Alina Adams is a New York City mom of three school-age children and a New York Times best-selling author of soap-opera tie-ins, figure-skating mysteries and romance novels. She is a contributing writer to TODAY Show Parenting, Mommy Poppins, BlogHer, Red Tricycle, Café Mom and Kveller. After going through the New York City school application process with her own children and realizing just how convoluted, Draconian and needlessly complex it was, Alina resolved to help make all parents aware of all their school choices—and how to get them—via her books, “Getting Into NYC Kindergarten” and “Getting Into NYC High-School,” as well as her podcast, “NYC School Secrets: Parents Helping Parents.”

Leave a Comment

The Feed

Explainers

all explainers

  • EXPLAINED: What Are Standardized Tests and Why Do We Need Them?

    Ed Post Staff

    Few issues in education spark more tension and debate than standardized testing. Are they a tool for equity or a burden on students? A necessary check on school systems or a flawed measure of...

  • Explained: What Is the Federal Charter Schools Program?

    Ed Post Staff

    Charter schools are public schools with a purpose. Operating independently from traditional school districts, they're tuition-free, open to all students, and publicly funded—but with more flexibility...

  • A Leaky Educator Pipeline Loses Teachers of Color

    Ed Post Staff

    Despite the benefits of a diverse teaching force, prospective teachers of color fall out of our leaky preparation pipeline at every stage: preparation, hiring, induction, and retention. Here’s what...

Ed Post is the flagship website platform of brightbeam, a 501(c3) network of education activists and influencers demanding a better education and a brighter future for every child.

© 2020-2025 brightbeam. All rights reserved.