Omissions and Distortions

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

Now available at http://www.sdkrashen.com, under
"articles": "Omissions and Distortions from The
Lexington Institute: Comments on Torrance (2006)"
Stephen Krashen
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Omissions and Distortions from The Lexington 
Institute: Comments on Torrance (2006)

Stephen Krashen

The Lexington Institute has just published a 
paper, Immersion, Not Submersion (Torrance, 
2006), that claims that English immersion has 
been a great success in California. The argument 
is based entirely on one finding, the increase in 
the percentage of English learners who score in 
the highest two levels of one test, the CELDT. I 
have responded to this claim in several places, 
twice in newspapers and in one case before the 
State Board of Education in Texas, with Lexington Institute members present.

The Lexington paper ignores:

1.	Findings showing that test score increases are 
typical for the first few years after any new 
test is introduced (Linn, Graue, and Sanders, 
1990). The CELDT was introduced in 2001. 	
2.	A report from the California Legislative 
Analyst office (Hill, 2006) showing that at least 
some of the increase in the percentage of 
students between 2002 and 2004 at the top two 
CELDT levels was because of a traffic jam: Many 
children in these levels had been there for 
several years; the percentage of those moving 
into the advanced levels actually decreased. 	
3.	Reports showing that the overall progress of 
children in California under English immersion is 
not spectacular; average gains are less than one 
level of the CELDT per year out of five levels, 
where level five means "ready for the mainstream" (Jepsen and de Anth, 2005). 	
4.	Reports concluding that dropping bilingual 
education did not accelerate the English 
development of California's English learners 
(Grissom, 2004, Parrish, Pérez, Merickel, and Linquanti, 2006). 	
5.	The well-established finding that bilingual 
education is typically more effective than 
all-English alternatives (e.g. Cummins, 1983; 
Willig, 1985; Greene, 1997; Rolstad, Mahoney, and 
Glass, 2005; Slavin and Cheung, 2005; Krashen and McField, 2006). 	

Lexington's reaction has been to simply ignore these reports.

In addition to these inexcusable omissions, the 
report also contains a number of distortions:

The claim is made that "the most successful 
schools (in California) have strictly limited the 
use of any language other than English in the 
classroom" (page 5). No data or citation is 
provided to support this claim, and it runs 
counter to the results of the Parrish et. al. and 
Grissom studies cited above, which found no 
advantage to dropping bilingual education.

The report claims that before 227, "most 
California English learners were taught for the 
majority of the time in their native language" 
(page 5). In fact, before 227 was passed, only 
about 50 percent of English learners were in 
programs that had any kind of non-English support 
(Han, Baker, and Rodríguez 1997).

The suggestion is made that bilingual education 
at that time was nearly all Spanish ("they might 
hear English only 30 minutes a day"). According 
to one study of bilingual programs in California 
before 227, by the time the children were in 
grade 3, 75% of their subject matter instruction 
was in English, and it was 90% by grade 5 
(Mitchell, Destino, and Karan, 1997).

The suggestion was made that bilingual education 
in California had typically utilized concurrent 
translation (which of course conflicts with the 
previous accusation of little use of English): 
One teacher interviewed said that immersion 
students learn English better: "If they know 
they're going to hear it in their own language, 
they don't listen as carefully" (p. 6). The model 
in used in California was the gradual exit model 
(Krashen and Biber, 1988), which does not use concurrent translation at all.

Interestingly, Lexington describes with 
enthusiastic approval the technique of 
front-loading lessons with information provided 
in the first language, the idea of using the 
first language to supply background information 
that makes input in English more comprehensible: 
"Before teaching a new concept, an educator might 
quickly summarize it in the primary language" (p. 10).

This is precisely the core idea underlying 
successful bilingual education, including the 
gradual exit model that was used in California. 
The difference is that Lexington prefers the use 
of this concept lesson by lesson, while bilingual 
programs typically provide this background 
knowledge over an extended period of time. But 
the underlying concept is the same.

The report asserts that Open Court has been shown 
to be successful, and that intensive phonics has 
been shown to be superior to whole language (p. 
7,8). Torrance either ignores or is unaware of 
publications arguing that this is not true 
(Garan, 2002; Krashen, 2002, Coles, 2003).

The Lexington Institute is free to disagree with 
the findings of other writers and researchers, 
but they are not free to ignore them.

References

Coles, G. 2003. Reading The Naked Truth: 
Literacy, Legislation, and Lies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Cummins, J. 1983. Heritage language education: A 
literature review. Toronto: Ministry of Education.

Garan, E. 2002. Resisting Reading Mandates. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Greene, J. 1997. A meta-analysis of the Rossell & 
Baker review of bilingual education research. 
Bilingual Research Journal 21 (2/3): 103-122.

Grissom, J. 2004. Reclassification of English 
learners, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 
12(36). Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n36/.

Han, M., Baker, D., and Rodríguez, C. 1997. A 
Profile of Policies and Practices for Limited 
English Proficient Students: Screening Methods, 
Program Support, and Teacher Training. 
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, NCES 97-472.

Hill, E. 2006. Update, 2002-2004: The progress of 
English learner students. Sacramento, CA: Legislative Analyst.

Jepsen, C. and de Alth, S. 2005. English learners 
in California schools. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California

Krashen, S. 2002. The NRP comparison of whole 
language and phonics: Ignoring the crucial 
variable in reading. Talking Points, 13(3): 22-28.

Krashen, S. and Biber, D. 1988. On Course: 
Bilingual Education's Success in California. 
Ontario, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Krashen, S. and McField, G. 2005. What works? 
Reviewing the latest evidence on bilingual 
education. Language Learner 1(2): 7-10, 34.

Linn, R., Graue, E., & Sanders, N. 1990. 
Comparing state and district test results to 
national norms: The validity of claims that 
"everyone is above average." Educational 
Measurement: Issues and Practice, 10, 5-14.

Mitchell, D., Destino, T. and Karan, R. 1997. 
Evaluation of English Language Development 
Programs in the Santa Ana Unified School 
District. Riverside, CA: California Educational 
Research Cooperative, University of California, Riverside.

Parrish, T., Pérez, M., Merickel, A., and 
Linquanti, R. 2006. Effects of the Implementation 
of Proposition 227 on the Education of English 
Learners, K-12. Palo Alto and San Francisco, CA: 
American Institutes for Research and WestEd

Rolstad, K., Mahoney, K., and Glass, G. 2005. The 
big picture: A meta-analysis of program 
effectiveness research on English language 
learners. Educational Policy 19(4): 572-594.

Slavin, R. and Cheung, A. 2005. A synthesis of 
research on language of reading instruction for 
English language learners. Review of Educational Research 75(2): 247-284.

Willig, A. 1985. A meta-analysis of some selected 
studies on the effectiveness of bilingual 
education. Review of Educational Research, 55(3), 269-318.

Torrance, K. 2006. Immersion Not Submersion 
Volume II: Lessons from Three California School 
Districts' Switch from Bilingual Education to 
Structured Immersion. Arlington, VA: The Lexington Institute.