Home and school, the language gap

The José Martí Child Development Center deserves the national accolades coming its way for the center's bilingual Spanish and English preschool.

Policymakers focused on early-childhood education should view it as a model for preparing Latino children for school. The center is a common-sense effort by El Centro de la Raza, the Beacon Hill nonprofit that offers support services to Latino families to bridge the gap between home and school.

El Centro deservedly won the 2008 National Council of La Raza/Annie E. Casey Foundation Family Strengthening Award because of José Martí's impact on Latino children and learning. The award includes $16,500 for the preschool. For the public, the reward ought to be replication of the center's successful formula within the preschool system.

Bilingual education is proven pedagogy. Research shows students emerge from dual-language programs academically on par with other students, or ahead.

The rigors of learning a second language hone a variety of intellectual and social skills. Preschool offers these skills at an early age. The benefit to schools is students arriving in kindergarten working at grade level.

The goal, as with any successful effort, will be to duplicate it as fast as education budgets allow. There will be students to fill the slots. Since one of the first dual-language programs opened in 2003 at Woodin Elementary School in Bothell, the concept has been adopted in schools across Puget Sound.

Seattle's John Stanford International School is wildly popular, with waiting lists to access the Japanese and Spanish lanuage-immersion program. This fall, Beacon Hill Elementary school in South Seattle begins language immersion for Spanish, Mandarin and English learners.

Two important distinctions color debate over bilingual education. There is a difference between offering English speakers the opportunity to learn a second language and educating immigrant students, for whom the best teaching strategy begins in their native language and evolves to the English-only standard of education.