By The Star Staff
For Rep. Yashira Lebrón Rodríguez, the incoming deputy speaker of the island House of Representatives, bilingual education in public schools, particularly in elementary grades, will be a priority during the next four-year term that begins in January.
“In line with the public education policy of our elected governor, Jenniffer González, which focuses on promoting bilingual education for our students in the public school system, we will be working on legislation that makes this objective viable, mainly in primary grades, so that our children leave elementary school with knowledge of the English language, which is essential for professional development in the interconnected world in which we live,” the Bayamón lawmaker said.
“We are going to promote the Pilar Barbosa Boarding School, a unique platform created by Law 53-1997 and administered by the Legislative Assembly, which has as its main objective to expand the academic experiences of our teachers at various levels, including the university, through the system of boarding schools in Congress, as well as federal government agencies in Washington, D.C.,” the New Progressive Party legislator added. “We believe that this program has the potential to assist in the development of bilingual programs in public schools.”
“According to the results of the META-PR tests, only 33 percent of our students in the public system are proficient in English. That is not enough; in fact, the figure is 40 percent lower than that established by the Department of Education itself,” Lebrón noted. “The Action Plan for Puerto Rico, endorsed by the people at the polls, establishes as an educational priority to increase that figure and that is our commitment from the new House of Representatives …”
Law 53-1997 created the Pilar Barbosa Program for Internships in Education of the Legislative Assembly. According to the law, the “purpose of the Program will be to facilitate Puerto Rican teachers and professors to better understand the functioning of Congress and the Federal Government and to coordinate the performance of interns in federal agencies, as well as in the United States Congress, in positions whose functions are related to education, but which are not limited to formal teaching in the classroom.”
I would like to suggest, as a 44-year intermediate and high school and college educator, that Rep. Yashira Lebrón Rodríguez should learn that a student, in order to succeed in an academic setting, needs a solid foundation on his/her native language, background, history and culture. Unfortunately, these had been the areas that the NPP and the PDP had neglected for years pushing the idea that bilingualism is the sole agent to secure a better future; despise the insistence of the 2 political parties, we all know that Puerto Rican, is spite of 126 years of NorthAmerican colonialism, aren't bilingual. We just need to recall the NPP candidate to Resident Commissioner performance during the recent debate; his English notwithstanding his basic…