dual-language classes

Washington's Wapato School District eliminated all of its dual-language classes last month, despite the fact that 67 percent of its students are Latino and in spite of evidence within the school district that bilingual education helped kids score higher on standardized tests.

The Yakima Herald-Republic's Phil Ferolito interviewed Wapato school board officials who say they stand behind the change because they want to focus on student performance on standardized tests.  However, the students enrolled at the district elementary school that still held dual-language classes last year outperformed the students at the district's two other schools whose instructors were told to throw away their Spanish teaching materials.

Those results are confirmed by national studies that show elementary students who become bilingual begin to outperform other students by the seventh grade.