Briefly review the background of bilingual education and what kinds are available in the New York City public school system.

Some things to consider:
According to the Department of Education, half of New York City students speak a language other than English at home. Unfortunately, by the end of elementary school, most of these functionally bilingual students do not possess balanced biliteracy. Also, their bilingualism is subtractive or leading to the loss of the home language. Unless an effort is made to enhance the opportunities of urban students to achieve language proficiency and cultural competence in both the home language and English, the advantages of bilingualism that you learned about will never materialize for this large group of New Yorkers. What could be done to make sure that these bilinguals have equitable access to language learning opportunities?
Some important links
Department of Education Information and Data Overview. This site provides you with a database of New York City’s Department of Education giving you a snapshot of the demographics in the system and some evaluative information including quality reports on the schools, students, and teachers.
Demographics Snapshot 2017-2018 This is a demographics report taken directly from the Data Overview website above.
Department of Education English Language Learners Division. This site leads specifically to the division that handles all the ELL students in the DOE. You will find the descriptions of the programs available to ELL students in the public school system.
Anticipated Bilingual Education Programs. This website contains information on bilingual education programs available for schools in the school system. If you are curious as to what kind of program is available for your school, use this website.
Your task
In this research paper, respond to the prompt below:
Analyze the DOE report and the models of bilingual education available to public schools in New York City. Based on your analysis, choose a school in New York City of your choice and recommend a type of bilingual education best suited for the school to support the students who report being bilingual. If your chosen school already has a bilingual education in place, discuss whether it is the best program for that school. Why or why not?
Suggestions on structuring your paper
1. Briefly review the background of bilingual education and what kinds are available in the New York City public school system. You should provide: (1) a definition of bilingual education explaining how it differs from language education and (2) the explanation of the three orientations towards other languages (language as a problem, as a right, and as a resource). (3) How these language orientations give way to different models of bilingual education.
2. Analyze some of the data provided for you at the DOE’s website and identify the diverse populations and their languages in the NYC public schools. Provide a brief synthesis of the numerical information in the report.
3. Using one school of your choice, discuss how the school fit in the demographics in terms of the location of the school and the population, language is spoken, socio-economic status, and so on.
3. State the problem that the NYC public schools face. Explain the ethical consequences of not addressing the need for equitable instruction in both the home language and English for 40+% of students in NYC public schools. What are the implications?
4. If a bilingual education program is available in your chosen school, discuss the effectiveness of the program in terms of the demographics it is serving in that school. If a bilingual education is not available, propose one that offers the best fit for the students in your chosen school. Select a program that you think is the most appropriate for the NYC context, considering the report you have studied. Describe the program in detail: How are the languages taught? How much time is spent on each language? What is the balance among the languages? Who are the students? How are they selected? Be as descriptive as you can. Justify your choice by showcasing what you know about the program’s effectiveness and second language acquisition in general.
5. Conclude this paper with a summary of your recommendation to the Department of Education. Explain how the model you propose will match the need to enhance the opportunities of urban students to achieve the language proficiency and cultural competence required for success in the modern global marketplace. You should have at least 5 references in your paper. This paper should be 5-6 pages long.
Your role and audience: Effective writers can place themselves into their reader’s minds and anticipate possible questions. In writing this essay, imagine that you are writing to someone who knows less about this topic than you and who, for example, is not aware of the press reports on the most recent developments in neuroscience. Therefore, give your reader the necessary context or background information throughout the essay to help him/her follow your discussion.
This is the school that I chose:
I will be focusing on a particular school called “Lower East Side Preparatory High School”. I choose this school because I want to know a little deeper about how Chinese people learn another language because I know the Chinese language is one of the most difficult languages to learn, for this reason, I am curious to know if they have a language considered so difficult to learn, maybe for them is easier to learn another language.
Name of the School:
Lower East Side Preparatory High School
Location of the school:
It is a public school in NY, USA. Its address is 145 Stanton St, New York, NY 10002, United State. This school is 59 minutes away in time from my house using the train 5 since freeman St. To Brooklyn Bridge, later to take train J until Delancey ST.
Any websites related to this school:
This is the school website: https://www.lespnyc.com/
What kind of bilingual education programs are available in this school?
The school offers a transitional bilingual program in Spanish and Chinese.
Here there is an example of how it should be developing this paper.
Models of Bilingual Education
The population of New York City is culturally diverse, and as a result, there are many English Language Learners (ELL) within the five boroughs. According to NYCDOE, there were 150,741 (ELLs) enrolled in NYC public schools during the 2015-16 school year. Brooklyn, where I will be focusing my studies, has an ELL population of 43,559. This is 28.9% of all the ELLs enrolled in the NYC public school system. There are more than 100 home languages used in Brooklyn. The top ten most common home languages account for 95.4% of the ELL population. The remaining 4.6% of the ELL population speak 93 other home languages. (NYCDOE 20)
In order to serve its diverse population, the city offers many different models of bilingual education to help the students offering the tools necessary to succeed in the United States. Of all the types of bilingual education, I recommend the Dual Language Program (DLP) because it gives the student to develop biliteracy and cross-cultural understanding in two languages. This paper will examine the different models of bilingual education, followed by the introduction of PS 147 elementary school’s DL program, and explain why I think this program will enhance the opportunities of students to achieve the language proficiency and cultural competence required for success in the modern global world.
Bilingual education has multiple facets and meanings. Although many people are not aware of the differences, there is a clear distinction between bilingual education and language education. Bilingual education refers to education that uses the language as a medium of instruction. The goal of bilingual education is to provide meaningful and open-minded education 2 to promote diversity. Language education teaches language as a subject and only uses the target language in instruction. The goal of language education is to be a competent speaker in another language. (Garcia 6)
It is also important to look at the three different orientations towards other languages because they are the basis for the models of bilingual education today. They are language as a problem, as a right, and a resource. These orientations parallel Hornberger’s three models of bilingual education, which are the transitional model, maintenance model, and enrichment model.
Bilingualism was viewed as a problem after WWII because it was seen as a barrier to unity and equality. It was believed that for a nation to be modernized, people must speak one language. When multiple languages coexisted, a dominant language was chosen, and it was imposed upon all members of the society. (Garcia 14) This parallels Hornberger’s transitional model of bilingual education because the goal is language shift and cultural assimilation. This model was utilized to facilitate the transition process from the minority language to the dominant language. (Garcia 113) New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) has a program called Transitional Bilingual Education that mimics the transitional model: “as students develop English proficiency, time spent learning in English increases and home language instruction decreases.”(NYCDOE) These educational models impose monoglossic ideologies, which means that bilingualism is seen as two separate languages not working together. Eventually, the student will use their home language less and completely transition to speaking only in English.
During the 1970s, bilingual education was viewed as a right. Everyone has the right to acquire a language and maintain their native language. This allowed individuals and groups to take control of language instruction and revive languages that were once lost (Garcia 15). This coincides with the maintenance model of bilingual education in which the goal is language maintenance and strengthening cultural identity. (Garcia 113)
3 From the mid-1980s to the present, since the world became more globalized, bilingual education was seen as a resource. Bilingualism is seen as a tool to be acquired, and it promotes intercultural education to encourage understanding between different groups of people (Garcia 16). This orientation complements the enrichment model in which the goal is language development and cultural pluralism. (Garcia 113) This is also incongruent with the Dual Language Program which provides “instruction in two languages (50% in English and 50% in another language), to develop bilingualism, biliteracy, and cross-cultural understanding in both languages.” (NYCDOE) It is based on heteroglossia ideologies and dynamic bilingualism where a student will “gain the ability to move along the communicative ridges and craters created by multiple linguistic interrelationships among the many points of the bilingual continuum.” (Garcia 118) As a result, a student will be able to maximize learning efficacy and communication.
NYC has diversity in terms of both home languages and socioeconomic status. Many ELLs are on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. During the 2015-2016 school year, over 80% of NYC ELLs received free or reduced-price lunch due to the family’s low income. (NYCDOE 69) Garcia points out that if a child comes from an impoverished background, their bilingualism is often subtractive because it is not supported and developed in schools. Therefore, socioeconomic context can shape the children’s opportunities and access to the resources needed to develop and utilize the advantages of bilingualism. (Garcia 102)
Even among the top ten most common home languages (95.4 % of the ELL population), there is a great disparity as the two most common home languages account for more than 60% of the ELL population. (NYCDOE 20) The imbalance in the population sizes increases the probability that ELLs from languages with a smaller population will not receive the support or resources they need to be able to take advantage of bilingualism. This will limit the linguistic and cultural diversity of New York… This is an unfinished example of how should develop.

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