Lily Wong Fillmore, Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that there is currently a widespread ignorance in the Nation's education system of language and its impact on learning. Fillmore said that there is virtually no attention paid in schools of education to the importance of language on a child's educational success.

The Nation's schools, she stated, do a good job educating children who come from mainstream backgrounds. On the other hand, they do a poor job educating children "who come from low income, ethnic minority and immigrant families, especially if they speak languages or varieties of English other than the standard one spoken by the mainstream." Further, Fillmore exclaimed that "we do an especially poor job with some groups — Latinos, African-Americans, and Native Americans."

Given the problems our schools have had in the teaching of English language and literacy, a great many children are in special education although their learning problems stem from inadequate instruction rather than from a real learning disability. This leads Fillmore to observe that teachers are not being prepared to deal with linguistic diversity in the classroom. Students, therefore, are suffering from teachers' inability to discern language differences from language problems.

Maria Estela Brisk, Professor of Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, discussed "Bilingualism: A Desirable Educational Outcome." She argued that bilingualism is a desirable outcome for those who speak English as a first language, as well as for those who speak other languages. It is a trait, she said, that offers many advantages: academically and culturally.

Referencing several different research studies, Brisk noted that high levels of bilingualism are correlated with higher achievement in a variety of areas: educational expectations, the ability to read and do math, the ability to formulate scientific hypotheses, and the ability to think about language and analyze linguistic input.

Bilingualism, according to Brisk, is also a way for those from separate cultures to successfully integrate into another country, including those who choose to live in the United States. Becoming bilingual, however, is a difficult process, she said. Students, therefore, require a lot of support from their communities, their families, and their schools.

Brisk explained that a student's performance in learning new languages depends on four factors: 1) situational factors (linguistic, cultural, economic, political, and social characteristics), 2) school factors (climate, staff, peers, curriculum, and learning materials), 3) personal characteristics, and 4) the family. Like Fillmore, Brisk observed that more needs to be done to develop values and the proper environment within schools and communities that promote bilingualism.

Raising Inner-City Reading Levels

William Labov, Professor of Linguistics and Psychology and Director of the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed raising reading levels in inner-city schools. He exclaimed that the failure of inner-city schools to teach reading effectively is among the most serious social problems facing the country.

The principal investigator of the linguistic component of the African American Language and Culture Project, Labov noted that a majority of students in many inner-city schools fail to achieve reading skills that are strong enough to allow them to use reading to learn math, science, or any other subject. This situation, he said, is found in most large cities and largely affects those living in poverty and those in minority groups. This "minority differential in reading achievement," he said, "is a persistent problem that has not changed substantially in four years." Low reading skills make it difficult for "children to take advantage of the educational system to improve their life chances."

Labov explained that this differential reading achievement is not a psychological problem but one of the English language. He pointed to research that indicates that learning to read in English is more difficult than learning to read in other languages. One example of this difficulty is the fact that the alphabet was created for languages with five vowel sounds, but English has 16 vowel sounds, he said. In addition, the English language has borrowed vocabulary patterns from several different languages which has complicated the "sound-to-spelling rules" — crucial to learning to read.

In his examination of the minority differential reading achievement, Labov noted that this disparity is "accompanied by the home language of children that may affect reading." For example, he pointed to the "large systematic and regular differences between African American English and other dialects." The home language of African Americans and Latino children is often different from the standard language taught in the classroom. He said that researchers are unsure, however, if these differences impair a child's ability to master phonemic awareness — knowing how words and syllables are built out of consonants and vowels.

Labov also pointed to a social dimension as part of the explanation for reading difficulties. He said that by the fourth grade children begin to read for content and those who "cannot read begin to have a sense of failure." It is at this grade that pre-adolescent peer groups are also first fully formed. These groups align themselves for or against the goals of the adult community and the school system. Those who see themselves as failing at reading may "reject reading in school programs as a whole."

For children to become successful readers of English, Labov noted that they should be taught both phonics and whole language approaches. The National Research Council report on reading, of which Labov was a committee member, declared that these two approaches must be combined for a successful approach to teaching reading.

John Baugh, Professor of Education and Linguistics at Stanford University, served as the closing speaker. During his brief remarks, Baugh suggested the irony of having a briefing on linguistic diversity here, "where Members of Congress bring with them the standard dialects from their home regions and treat each other with tremendous decorum and respect." He said that he would like to "see that model extended to the educational arena."

Linguistic abilities have direct economic consequences. This, he said, is particularly important with the advent of the global economy. In this global environment, people with diverse linguistic abilities have a resource and are greatly advantaged by their language abilities. Children coming to this country from abroad have historically been told to abandon their home languages to talk like "Tom Brokaw or Jane Pauley." Baugh called this a mistake and stressed that linguistic diversity needs to be accepted.