Peter Schrag: Back to the language wars

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

The next State Board of Education meeting will be an important one. 
Schrag's contention is interesting ("The system is all of a piece - the 
academic standards, the curriculum, the tests, the materials, the teacher 
training program: If one goes down, the whole structure is weakened") and 
probably correct.




Peter Schrag: Back to the language wars: Déjà vu once again
By Peter Schrag -- Bee Columnist
Published Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Story appeared in Editorials section, Page B7

Proposition 227, passed by voters in 1998, was designed to discourage, if 
not end, bilingual education in California, and for the most part it has. 
But it hasn't shut down the bilingual lobby and the associated political 
pressure to restore what would in effect be segregated programs for 
students designated as English learners (EL).
Because it's a complicated subject oozing with acronyms and ed-speak, and 
because it's loaded with hot-button symbolism, many of the partisans come 
to the lists with more passion than understanding.

 Some of the passion arises from genuine concern for children who speak 
little English and who are struggling in school; some from a witches' brew 
of adult motives - special interest job and turf protection and cultural 
politics, most of all.

The battle is likely to be resumed again next week when Californians 
Together, MALDEF (the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund) 
and other groups try to get the state Board of Education to add a new 
curricular option for EL students who score low on CELDT, the California 
English Language Development Test.

California already offers local districts five options tailored to the 
needs of different kinds of students, some providing additional intensive 
English language training consistent with the state's basic core program. 
MALDEF and its allies are now asking for Option VI: "a stand-alone Basic 
Comprehensive Language Arts Program for English Learners ... aligned to the 
state's English Language Development Standards." What that means is that 
there would henceforth be books and other classroom materials for 
low-scoring EL kids - those ranked below "early advanced" on CELDT - and, 
along with them, growing pressure on districts to resegregate them into 
those "stand-alone" programs. All together, that would cover 600,000 
students in grades K-8.

The trouble is that the English Language Development Standards that MALDEF 
and company want as a benchmark have no meaning other than as criteria for 
the CELDT test, and thus have only the remotest connection with 
California's core academic requirements.

Although classroom teachers could, in theory, teach both Option VI and the 
regular program, as a practical matter it's far too much for most teachers 
to handle. The result would be a new set of separate classes for kids who 
score low on CELDT - classes in which no student speaks fluent English, 
although some might be fluent in Korean or Chinese.

Inevitably, it would also fuel more lawsuits attacking the state for 
denying diplomas to students who fail the state's exit exam because they 
hadn't had the academic preparation to pass the test.

That may be less of a Catch-22 situation than appears. The Option VI 
demands are part of a long-standing attempt, led by Assembly Education 
Committee Chairwoman Jackie Goldberg and others, to modify - her critics 
would say abolish - the state's standards and accountability program.

Goldberg was the author of AB 2160 in 2002, a union-backed bill that would 
have made virtually all curricular and textbook decisions subject to 
collective bargaining at the local level. She was also the author of AB 
2347 that would have prohibited the state from making "high-stakes 
decisions" on the basis of test scores alone.

What's crucial here is that the system is all of a piece - the academic 
standards, the curriculum, the tests, the materials, the teacher training 
program: If one goes down, the whole structure is weakened.

Goldberg says the system's not working, that thousands of EL students 
sitting through mainstream classes "don't have \ idea of what's going on," 
that the gaps between EL and other students are widening and that they need 
more English language training. As long as the system is failing them, she 
says, schools need other options.

But have the gaps really widened? In grade four English language arts in 
2001, 7 percent of English learners were rated proficient or above on 
California's standards test, compared to 43 percent of fluent English 
speakers. In 2005, the numbers were 19 percent and 60 percent.

On an absolute scale, the gap has widened, but proportionately the gains 
for EL kids are much larger. And since the best students are - or should be 
- moved out of the EL category, and since there are always new immigrants, 
eliminating the gap is a statistical impossibility. But there have been 
substantial gains for both groups.

Although it has obvious flaws, by that measure the system - created after a 
generation of California students bombed on standardized tests and other 
indicators - seems to be working.

Goldberg's arguments echo those of the defenders of bilingual education 
before Proposition 227. But for most EL students a generation ago, 
bilingual education in California was a dead end that sucked in thousands 
of students and kept them there even when they knew English better than 
their native language.

Because they bring extra money for districts, too many English-fluent 
students are still stuck in the official EL category. But the glacier seems 
to be moving. There are no good old days to go back to.




George Sheridan