Language myths in interpreted education: First language, second language, what language?
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Our system has no way to judge whether deaf students in the educational mainstream are afforded an equal education. Between 46,000 and 51,000 deaf and hard of hearing children are in the U.S. public schools at the elementary and secondary level (Allen et al. 1994). During the 1998-99 school year, approximately 59 percent of children with "hearing impairments" in the United States spent more than 40 percent of the day in a regular education classroom; this number increased from approximately 48 percent in 1988-89 (U.S. DOE and NCES 2002). Records show that "most deaf children are now enrolled in regular public elementary schools and receive instruction in English through a sign language interpreter... [and] secondary level mainstreamed students use educational interpreters in over half of their classes" (La Bue 1998, 4, 5). Records show that the academic achievement scores of deaf children have not improved much since the early 1900s (Quigley and Paul 1986) when residential schools were the only option.1 The average deaf student reads at a third to fourth grade level (Schildroth and Hotto 1994, 20). Records show that there are more academic programs for the training of interpreters than ever before (American Annals 2003, 165-70), yet estimates also suggest that the majority of interpreters working in the public schools today are not certified by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. (RID).2 However, despite all this information that our records show, our system has no way to determine whether the education of deaf children in the interpreted mainstream is equal to that of their hearing counterparts in the same setting, although many have asked that question since the onset of P. L. 94-142 in 1975.
En Winston, E. A. (ed.), Interpreted education: How it can succeded.