letter to Sac Bee from Shannon Brown

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

> Sent to the Sacramento Bee: July 17
>
> Contrary to Marion Joseph?s statements, there is no
> research showing that giving English Learners the same
> curriculum as native speakers is a good idea. In fact,
> the research shows the opposite: Instruction must be
> comprehensible, or it is useless.
>
> Insisting that English learners sit through two hours
> a day of incomprehensible instruction is a waste of
> money, a waste of time, and inflicts needless
> suffering on the children. And of course it will also
> makes it much more difficult to teach the English
> speakers in the class.
>
> In this day and age of accountability, it seems as
> though quick fixes and 'one size fits' all approaches
> have to be put aside. Educational practices need to
> meet the needs of individual students;
> let's get back to the basics of good teaching for all
> kids.
>
> Shannon Brown
> Sacramento
>
> Best way to teach English skills argued
>
> By Laurel Rosenhall -- Bee Staff Writer
> Published 12:01 am PDT Saturday, July 15, 2006
> A high-decibel debate among education officials,
> politicians and advocates of bilingual schooling that
> led to the recent yanking of funds from the state
> Board of Education boils down to one difficult
> question:
> How should California teach roughly a quarter of the
> state's public school population -- students who are
> not native English speakers -- how to read and write?
> The persistent issue moved into the spotlight last
> week when former governors Gray Davis and Pete Wilson
> urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to resist bilingual
> activists and stick with California's current approach
> to teaching English learners how to read and write.
> There is no argument that a solid grounding in those
> skills is essential to success; they open the gate to
> almost everything else students will learn. And both
> sides agree that students must learn to read and write
> in English, as mandated by Proposition 227 in 1998.
> But even in English-only public schools, there's
> controversy over how best to reach students who are
> typically among the poorest-performing in the state.
> One side insists students new to English should learn
> to read and write in a way that's geared toward
> non-native English speakers. They've yet to develop
> specifics, but advocates say the approach would
> incorporate more pictures, written passages with
> simple syntax, common vocabulary and less academic
> English.
> The other side demands all children learn to read and
> write the same way, whether English is native to them
> or they're just learning the language.
> They argue that reading and writing lessons geared for
> English learners would amount to state-sanctioned
> segregation.
> "Why would we then give them something different from,
> less than, what native English speakers get? It's an
> equity issue," said Dale Webster, a policy consultant
> with the state Board of Education.
> He helped develop an approach the Board of Education
> approved in April that calls for first- through
> fifth-graders to learn reading and writing the same
> way during 2 to 2Â 1/2 hours a day. The program
> includes an extra 30 minutes of instruction, tailored
> to non-native speakers, to learn English.
> But advocates of an approach rejected by the Board of
> Education say non-native speakers should be taught
> English while taking lessons on reading and writing.
> They say dividing the English-learning time from other
> courses doesn't make sense and takes too much time.
> Under the method approved by the Board of Education,
> said Maria Quezada, executive director of the
> California Association for Bilingual Education,
> students new to English must sit through a two-hour
> reading lesson they don't understand before they get a
> 30-minute lesson that's comprehensible.
> "Why are we using an English-language arts program
> that's made for English speakers, not English
> learners?" she asked.
> The approach bilingual advocates prefer -- known as
> Option VI -- was supported by the Legislature's Latino
> caucus and the Association of California School
> Administrators, which represents principals and
> superintendents.
> The approach would be used only in classrooms
> dominated by immigrant children. And it would be a
> choice for districts, not a requirement. There is no
> need to worry that the approach would segregate
> schools, advocates say.
> "This segregation business -- that's baloney," said
> Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles. "The
> only districts that would buy these materials are the
> ones that are overwhelmingly English learners."
> But creating equality among schools was the whole
> point behind academic standards in the 1990s, said
> Marion Joseph, a former Board of Education member. She
> was on the board when it approved standards meant to
> raise achievement and expectations.
> "The commitment that those standards would be for
> every child, that's the No. 1 piece," Joseph said.
> "That's a commitment that had never been made before,
> and taking that very seriously and making sure it's
> not just hypocrisy took a lot of thought and
> research."
> In her eyes, a reading and writing curriculum that's
> different in an immigrant community than it is in an
> affluent white community defeats the whole point of
> standards.
> Others say the state can uphold the same standards for
> all children but permit them to reach those standards
> along different paths.
> As an example, they point to an elementary school book
> that tells the story of a friendship between two
> girls, Chrysanthemum and Delphinium.
> "For a second-language learner, those names are almost
> impossible to say and the fact that their names are
> flowers is completely lost on the kids," said Shelly
> Spiegel-Coleman of the Los Angeles County Office of
> Education.
> She would prefer a book that tells the friendship
> story whose characters have easier names.
> Webster, of the Board of Education, said it's
> important to expose children to academic English and
> sophisticated vocabulary from an early age to prepare
> them for the upper grades when they are expected to
> understand history and science texts.
> The fight now turns to the Legislature and Gov. Arnold
> Schwarzenegger. Senate Bill 1769 by Sen. Martha
> Escutia, D-Whittier, would require the Board of
> Education to develop an approach to teaching reading
> and writing that incorporates English instruction for
> non-native speakers.
> The bill would restore funding to the state Board of
> Education. Democrats said they pulled the funding from
> the state budget in retaliation for the board's
> rejection of the proposed English learner curriculum.
> A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman said he had not yet taken
> a position on the bill.
>
> About the writer:
>
>      â?¢     The Bee's Laurel Rosenhall can be reached
> at (916) 321-1083 or lrosenhall@sacbee.com.