Learning To Read While Learning English

By Claude Goldenberg

If the Bush administration is serious about "leaving no child behind" in the campaign to promote universal literacy, it should think very seriously about children who come from homes where English is not spoken. There are more than 1.4 million California schoolchildren who speak a language other than English. Nationally, there are nearly three times that many. All indications are the numbers will continue to rise.

These students face a daunting challenge in this day of high standards, unforgiving tests, and an information-drenched new economy. If the issues surrounding universal literacy in general are thorny, they are positively bedeviling for children learning English as a second language. Nostalgic English-only advocates might wistfully recall a simpler time when no one had to worry about children who came from homes where English was not spoken much, or at all. The common school presumably homogenized the immigrant polyglot into an English-speaking melting pot.

But this is a fantasy made possible by the miracle of self-selection: In the early 20th century, very few students, whether immigrant or native-born, were expected to complete high school, let alone go to college. The few who had the resources and did well enough, remained in school. Those who didn't, left. But even those who left still had plenty of other options for social mobility and economic self-sufficiency. Not so now; if you're out of school, you're out of luck. And if you don't know how to read very well, you're unlikely to stay...