[Music] we and the Texas Association for bilingual education want to share with you the story of a journey a journey spanning over 100 years it's a story of the history and Rich tradition of bilingual education in Texas we'll begin this retrospective with the enlightening research of Professor caros Blandon from Texas A&M University he reveals information long neglected by education historians uncovering surprising facts about the state's early experimentation in cultural pluralism and bilingual schooling gas's report helps to initiate our story of how people during different times in history have responded to the education of Mexican-American children and other language minority groups we hope to ignite within a new generation the flame of activism our desire in tab is is that we all continue to share and build upon the legacy of this unique and extraordinary form of education and as many possibilities this is the Texas bilingual education story we can come back and say you are more valuable if you can speak and translate business in more than one language bilingual education as a pedagogy as a methodology is one of those um methods that we know works as an educator I I've always said that I don't want any children Left Behind either what we want to do is help the child and we want them to succeed in life and this is the best approach and we they would have the ribbon pinned on them they would say I'm an American I speak English it's mandated to have biling from kindergarten to 12 United States [Music] there's this ingrained attitude that this is chismo this is the 60s this is all things associated with the 60s and it's a modern invention in my research I found that it wasn't a modern invention English only was the invention in the early 20th century late 19th century that displaced what had been this this flourishing tradition of bilingual education bilingual education flourished but it was a very localized informal almost a casual uh tradition and practice there were laws that required the teaching of English but nothing that outlawed the teaching of Spanish or German or any other language uh it was very legally obscure and what else I found is that it was generally Community Based bilingual happened because local community members wanted their own schools for their own children and they wanted some control over what the children were taught in the schools they wanted some control over language over curriculum over content over the hiring and firing of teachers this allowed through part of the 19th century Germans in certain towns and areas to preserve German schools cchs to preserve Czech schools and tanos to preserve Tano schools the history of bilingual education began almost simultaneously with the birth of Texas as a republic in 1836 German Czech and polish immigrants sought settlement in Texas during this period early German communities in Texas are credited with establishing one of the first schools in the state near the city of San Antonio Texas these prestigious institutions were not only successful at providing educational instruction in both German and English but also later adopted Spanish as a studied language the early Czech and polish communities also found educational solution in community-based schools the small town of panamaria in K's County was home to the large number of Polish immigrants who founded St Joseph's Catholic School an early Testament to the bilingual tradition however it was found that the public and private schools throughout the state took significant pains to meet the Ling listic needs of the Hispanic Community Mexican-American participation in the bilingual tradition was evident in both the public and private school systems of 19th century Texas but it was the small community schools of Texas that Drew the political weary of a changing legislative landscape in Texas Early Education wasn't very professionalized there was really no bureaucracy that oversaw anything it was sort of the wild west of Education policy and what happened is that as the teacher Corp becomes more professionalized as you develop a state agency that regulates more on local decisions as you have schools in Texas move away from the old common schools and towards the district system which is what we have now which is more tightly controlled from Austin as you have this increase in professionalization and centralization and bureaucratization they do what professionals and bureaucrats and Regulators do they make rules and one of the rules that comes out of this Progressive Era Renaissance of uh uh reform was English only the English only curriculum that sprang from the 1918 law dictating the use of English as an instructional language in all public Texas schools was the beginning of a Statewide effort to americanize the Immigrant communities in Texas while attempting to unify Statewide education policy the fact that the schools rejected our culture and rejected our our our our language was something that was very acceptable you know they they were the dominant they were the dominant uh culture in our society and and you kind of followed uh that English uh speaking Society and whatever the institutions they had built and you didn't realize that you were in in this situation as the end of the 19th century saw the slow dissipation of the bilingual tradition from the common schools of Texas the progressive education era of the early 20th century brought about the nationalization of englishon instruction in education this meant a total submersion to the English language and the elimination of any use of native Tong tongue and the first day of school I started in grade zero because I didn't know English as did most of my bar uh friends and the first day of school uh I I hollered to a friend of mine not realizing that I was violating anything the teacher immediately said you cannot speak Spanish go to Mr harvest's office the principal to be punished and there there was a long line of students there every day being punished for speaking Spanish schol I was on the south side of M and and all the schools were there were 100% Mexican-American uh and talk about the neighborhood concept they they ascribed to the neighborhood concept but the the few angles that Liv in the Southside of Mallen uh were bused to the North Side schools where the rest of the angrles attended uh they wouldn't give us bus transportation the neighbors that live next to to those families uh they they'd had to go to Sam Houston or Roosevelt uh the Southside schools and the other kids got the bus ride to to Lamar and and U uh Fields Elementary and I was a freshman when I sat next to my first angle student you know in macallen 1951 um and and all those times s you know I got spank for speaking Spanish like I said therea you know and that that that that that uh uh emotional hurt was there for a long time stories by other tanos in the early Mexican schools revealed that the real purpose of these schools was not necessarily to help them learn English indeed many of these young Mexican Americans were more fluent in English than in Spanish suggesting that the motive for the segregated schooling went beyond the children's inability to speak English even more striking as noted by Dr George I Sanchez in his early research of the Mexican schools the school buildings were generally rund down textbooks were old and out of adoption and classrooms were typically overcrowded these forms of institutionalized discrimination by the state of Texas were at the heart of the Mexican ameran education reports published by the US Commission on civil rights in the early 1970s during the first two world wars National concern with elevating patriotism and Americanization mandated englishon instruction and prohibited the use of non-english languages in the public schools of Texas in protest some parents and communities particularly in South Texas either challenged these laws or continue to form escalas that taught bilingually some of which were reported as lasting as far far as 1965 however it wasn't until the Cho movement of the 1960s that the seams of the Texas education system began to come undone as englishon idolism came under the attack of desegregation advancement of cultural awareness and pride in 1969 the culmination of the decade's political turmoil over educational policy came to a head in a small Texas town Crystal City so in 1969 uh the students this time got tired of the Discrimination the Prejudice the name calling uh getting them uh punished for speaking Spanish uh being embarrassed and humiliated for bringing tacos to school uh and insisting on an englishon curriculum that had only Anglo models and you could only speak English it was subtracting from what they brought to the classroom this was an obvious attempt at trying to make them uh more by by making them less and this was ridiculous from the perspective of the students over 100 students walked out of the Crystal City High School on March 21 1969 to demonstrate their frustration with such culturally and academically deficient education this protest was one of the most notable School walkouts happening all across Texas during this period particularly in cities such as Del Rio Houston edcouch Elsa Kingsville and many others protests were made against the no Spanish speaking rule of the school system as well as the segregated atmosphere of their school's Community the Crystal City walkout would come to be known as one of the defining moments in the history of bilingual education in Texas the problems we face as Cho students are faced by all chos throughout the Southwest every demand that we made on Mexican-American books on a Mexican-American class on Mexican-American teachers and a counselor was if there is funds for it we will Pro if there is no money we will not I think that was the best lesson that I ever had in politics that that school board controlled what went on in our schools and that being part of that school board was very important I really wasn't there during the walk out Crystal City was uh the first one where the students decided and the parents with their permission decided to walk out and bring about change together with new legislation on a federal level bilingual education was posed to return to the Texas classroom one of the major challenges now facing the public school system was how to define and Implement what bilingual education would [Music] become our goal is for the children to be bilingual to be fluent in both languages to be educated in both languages throughout all of their years in school and in order to do this we found that it was necessary to individualize instruction when you visit a bilingual classroom especially where individualized instruction is taking place you'll find that the students are very relaxed and that they're also active this um allows the child to Channel all of his energy into different activities the cultural element is is a vital part of their bilingual instruction but I don't feel that that alone would would be sufficient it's important for them to be aware of their culture proud of their culture but it's also important for them to achieve success in all of the academic areas and that requires instruction in the language that they understand quadrangular legislators and Educators alike would soon find out modern bilingual education practices had already started to take shape under the radar of the state legislation fueled by an alarming 80 to 90% rate among Texas Mexican American children in the public schools Mrs Dolores s of the Laredo United Consolidated School District and other Innovative teachers led the state's pioneering efforts by launching Texas's first bilingual program in the first grade at the I elementary school so in the year of 1963 I was a first grade teacher had been there since 1957 uh they asked us if we wanted to teach bil langual and we said yes we had no materials we had no books we didn't have anything things but we had a lot of energy and a lot of love of teaching our te children in two languages and that was the beginning of bilingual education in our school district in 1963 the board members the school district the superintendent they went along in allowing me to try different ways and the best way that I found was to keep all the children in the classroom teaching them in two languages aided by the Laredo United school district and early research from the US and other parts of the world a variety of school districts in Texas subsequently developed their own bilingual programs the prime objective of these programs as in later programs of bilingual education was to Foster the effective transitioning of Spanish-speaking children from instruction in their native language to English how this objective was implemented in most cases depended on local circumstances and [Music] resources part of that Cho movement effort was to resurrect pride in being of Mexican heritage and in speaking your own language so that added to the Dynamics around bilingual education and it raised questions about bilingual education maybe um being able to promote language maintenance as one of its goals in addition to school achievement so all of these factors poverty legislation the black um Civil Rights Movement The Cho uh Cho movement uh research on bilingualism and the activism of these Scholars that have been involved for decades all of this uh individuals and contextual factors laid the groundwork for the arguments in support of bilingual education and help mobilize people uh different groups from different areas in support of a specific bill that would begin to deal systematically with those problems and that was of course the the inag of the bilingual education Act of 1968 the Civil Rights Movement legislation of the 60s and the Great Society programs of the Lynden B Johnson Administration fostered a major change in the perception towards ethnic minorities in this country although the discriminatory practices would continue to exist segregated schooling was declared unconstitutional and equality of educational opportunities for language minority children evolved as a Worthy and highly desirable goal for public education it was within this context that support for the bilingual education at the national level emerged as an alternative approach to englishon instruction after some study for months we introduced the first bilingual education bill in the history of the United States Congress in January of 1967 but it wasn't easy to pass we ran into roadblocks from the White House and from The Office of Education it was a year-long strug but we have strong allies a number of Senators co-sponsored it with me notably Senator Robert Kennedy and Jacob javitz of New York Senator Montoya of New Mexico Senator Williams of New Jersey and others this bill officially known as title seven of the elementary and secondary Education Act of 1968 was sponsored by senator yarro from Texas was signed into law by President Johnson one year after it was introduced into the US Senate title 7 was pivotal in allowing State funds to be stipulated for bilingual education programs for students whose first language was not English while simultaneously stimulating the need for positive bilingual legislation in Texas it was during the 61st legislative session a year after title 7 was signed into law that the first Texas bilingual education act also known as House Bill 103 was introduced by Senator Joe Bernal for the purpose of repealing the 1918 English only law and presenting an unpaved path for formal bilingual education to be built upon including programs funded under the new federal Esa legislation a much stronger bill Senate Bill 121 mandating bilingual education in elementary classes was introduced by Senator Galos thuan in the 1973 session of the Texas legislature this act unlike the 196 9 House Bill 103 legislation mandated the establishment of bilingual and ESL programs and that bill became law in the state of Texas and gave us the leverage necessary to promote bilingual education in the state of Texas even in those school districts that did not support bilingual education later we were greatly supported by the federal mandate that federal judge William Wayne Justice issued at a Tyler mandating bilingual education from kindergarten through the 12th grade and in order for us to to to be able to comply with with his mandate we had to have the program we had you know no uh preparation of teachers we didn't really have uh a systematic uh um curriculum we did not have uh adequate uh materials for instruction we were just just working under the um I guess the assumption that when a student doesn't understand instruction in a in a language then if you provide that instruction in the students's native language you are in fact assisting that students to learn academic uh subjects this quest for Best Practices appropriate instructional materials and models of teacher preparation in bilingual education became the driving force towards a comprehensive framework for bilingual programs support for this comprehensive approach came from additional federal legislative as well as executive and judicial actions particularly in 1974 Lao versus Nicholls decision in this decision the US Supreme Court ruled that a language other than English could be used in planning appropriate instructional response to the education of language minority children new curriculum programs and materials would be introduced Statewide such as the rock and roll program developed by airis and the sabz program developed by Dr Maria Gonzalez Baker it was the convergence of several social and political factors and influence of several organizations that enabled Senator thuan and others in the legislature to secure the needed support for mandatory bilingual education in Texas the league of United Latin American citizens the American GI form the Mexican American legal Defense Education fund and the Intercultural development research Association were all key players in affecting positive change in the education of English language Learners foremost however it was the impact of the Texas Association for B education formed in 1972 with the explicit purpose of advocating for Texas's language minority children and the institutionalization of bilingual and ESL education in Texas schools and all of this U encouraged uh the half dozen directors here in Bear County at that time to get together about once a month we had a lunch in at kum's restaurant over here on S Samora Street one day I took the head table the the head of the table in at one of our lunches and someone said well the person at the head of the table pays for lunch and can be the first president of tabby I couldn't turn that down and U we didn't even have an installation ceremony yet for our chapters so I had them raised their right hand hand when they invited me to install the first set of officers and I said are you willing to work hard and track a long journey on behalf of bilingual education and they all said yes thus the formation of tab took place in the state of Texas continuing a legacy of activism for Texas bilingual education however it wasn't until federal district court judge William Wayne Justice's 1981 decision in US versus Texas that shifted the focus of Advocates towards strengthening the research and methodology behind bilingual education while remaining steadfast to the battle for equal educational opportunities bilingual education as a pedagogy as a methodology is one of those um methods that we know works we know that good quality bilingual education programs work and that they work to assure that children learn English uh that uh in some cases they continue to master the other language which is increasingly important um in terms of economic productivity in terms of even National Security uh concerns as we have learned uh lately bilingual people are important in that this well as bilingual education gains support on the local level by teachers parents and Community leaders stories of effective bilingual education began to surface there are always some who are very doubtful but once their kids are in here for a couple of um months they see the difference right away and there's no problem after that I've never had a problem with a parent who is who who objects to this program my former students they are doing really well the majority of them are scoring in very well on the tax and um I just find that they're they're doing really a good job the effectiveness of bilingual education programs was supported and confirmed by a growing body of scientific research This research indicated that a variety of effective instructional models existed one of these is the Dual language model four years ago we received a grant from the Department of Education to fund our dual language program and we just feel like our program has really enhanced learning here at Crockett Elementary five years ago this school was low performing that was on the toss test and we are very proud to say that with the new tax test we are recognized with our scores from last year we feel like we owe a lot of it to our dual language program one of the most critical factors in order to have a successful dual language program is strong administrative support certainly at the campus level here in the atleta Independent School District many of our dual language programs have been initiated by Campus based administrators admin ministrators that were not only familiar with the Dual language philosophy and structure but also were strong Advocates to introduce the Dual language program in their schools start calling it two-way dual language because really what we're talking about is the future of educated citizens and in this state especially in this country we need to look at that is our future this state is the biggest trading partner with Mexico and increas ly our view is looking South what we've seen in California and other models that if you do it wrong it has disastrous results the California what I call the cold turkey solution means that kids drop out kids fail because you're using a pedagogy and a curriculum that just doesn't work and it's important that we provide the bilingual education for the LEP students in order to make sure that they're successful because if they're not successful ultimately Texas will not be successful [Music] Educators administrators legislators and historians all agree that bilingual education retains undeniable advantages as an educational tool for states such as Texas which celebrates its diverse culture Although our state's bilingual Legacy has been Associated mostly with the Spanish-speaking community in the present it has expanded to address the needs of other growing language communities such as the Vietnamese and Pakistani communities of the Lone Star State bilingual education is leading the effort uh to move this country toward bilingualism and biliteracy in the past bilingual education focused on on supporting children that did not speak English to learn a second language but now bilingual education with dual language education or what also is referred to as two-way bilingual education or one-way bilingual education and what that means are it's programs that that serve different types of populations within their campuses programs where the majority of children are English dominant or Spanish dominant they are served by oneway programs dual language is really the future for bilingual education and is where we're going as Jose Gonzalez mentions and and I quote him in my book um I think that we're in a different kind of of world where new forms of bilingualism are going to emerge that are not tainted with the highly politicized nature of bilingual education of the past uh and what we're going to see is the emergence of much more positive forms of bilingual education uh enrichment bilingual education uh two-way bilingual education dual language I mean all of these new forms um get at at that issue and move Beyond simply just providing English language instruction for language minority children it expands the debate uh towards uh moving in a direction where all Americans learn multiple languages hope of a multi- literate America is but one dream of the philosophy behind bilingual education and organization like d although history has proven that American politics and legislation have at times hindered the growth and effectiveness of bilingual education its importance in a global economy demonstrates to Modern Nations that they can only grow and improve with bilingual education programs the importance of bilingualism and Student Success compels tab to continue its good work in aiding Texas Educators to promote biliteracy and to assure the Legacy of bilingual education is not [Music] [Music] forgotten I have a [Music] i makes a very good house good good house she makes a very good house for me it a little Chim Chim Chim it a little chimy brown is [Music] a moon is yellow at night the moon is yellow the moon is yellow at night the moon is yellow I go to bed and look out of the window and see the yellow yellow moon [Music] yellow yellow Theon yellow at nighton is yellow I to look out of the window and