Singled Out: Is bilingual education helpful or harmful to the classroom?

Growing up in South Texas gave me a great perspective on bilingual teaching. I had three classes where there would be a small group of students that couldn't fully speak English and would spend most of class talking in their native Spanish tongues. While it wasn't much of a problem in the beginning, the time that piled up from the teacher having to teach things a second time to other students in Spanish greatly affected …

…very frustrating situation. Student's like him would even act out towards the native speaking people because it was affecting his grade so much. The continued use of bilingual education will continue to push students back and the results will be very significant. I think that bilingual education should be taken out of schools, and like Richard Rodriguez, I am near ashamed of my heritage because of the drawbacks that it imposes on my fellow students.