Half of English learners left behind
A new report on English learners in California is indicting and disturbing. At the end of elementary school, half of English learners still lack basic fluency in academic English. Their future in school is bleak without it.
Long-term English learners – students who have been in school at least six years without becoming proficient in English — will fall father behind once they arrive in middle or high school. Ninety percent are two or more years behind in math and English language arts and have gotten at least two Ds or Fs in the past year. By the time they are juniors in high school, three-quarters will be testing at the bottom – basic or far below basic – in math and English on state tests.
In California high schools, 18 percent of students are English learners, who, by definition, are those who speak a language at home other than English. And yet the far majority of long-term English learning students were born in America and are adept in conversational English. You might never know their deficits – the lack of English literacy and their weak vocabulary – by casually speaking with them. And tragically, according to the study, “Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of Education Opportunity for California’s Long-term English Learners,” many of the students and their parents don’t know how far behind they are. Many aspire to go to college, but, often isolated with other English learners in high-poverty neighborhoods, they don’t know their skills are out of sync with their ambitions.
The study of 40 districts in California, by a researcher for the coalition Californians Together, analyzes the failings of the long-term English learners’ elementary education. Many, it said, were thrown into mainstream classes without extra support or assigned teachers unskilled in English learning development, while others had inconsistent help or were subjected to a mixture of contrary approaches – English immersion one year, bilingual education the next, depending if they changed schools.
But while the diagnoses may be clear, the solutions are more complex, and two of the study’s key recommendations will be controversial and likely to stir up familiar fights. The study blames the State School Board’s rejection in 2006 of an explicit English language development curriculum for the lack of guidance and an incoherent approach by local districts. And it calls once again for its adoption. The State Board voted it down out of concern that a separate curriculum would further isolate, not integrate, English learners. The study also calls for more instruction in students’ primary language – Spanish for 85 percent of English learners statewide – both in elementary schools, and, for long-term English learners in high school, “an articulated sequence (of primary language courses) through Advanced Placement.”
The study takes the position that bilingual education results in “higher outcomes in English literacy, and also provides more access and fewer gaps in academic content.” But an exhaustive study released in April by the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University found that Spanish-speaking children learned equally well with bilingual and structured English immersion programs. What mattered was how well the program was done, not which alternative was chosen.
There could be common ground on other recommendations in the study:
- Creating a course for long-term English learners, focusing on academic uses of English, complex vocabulary and writing that would be joined to a grade-level English course, mixed with English speakers and taught by the same teacher.
- Intentionally integrating clusters of long-term English learners with English proficient students while providing supports such as online tutorials, Saturday schools and homework support;
- Better educating parents and English learners about the differences between the California English Language Development Test (CELDT), which is given to English learners annually, and the state California Standards Tests, given to all students. Parents don’t understand that an early advanced rating under CELDT isn’t close to comparable to proficiency on the English language arts test.
What the study doesn’t make clear enough is why districts are succeeding with the half of U.S.-born English learners who are reclassified as English proficient by the end of sixth grade. That should be the starting point of a discussion.
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Putting community volunteers to work before and/or after school in the early years for conversational/social opportunities for our students is one possibility. These encounters could be at churches, community spaces or at high schools and colleges. Those who are classified staff at schools can help arrange some of these connections. Much more than this can be accomplished should we look south to TX to find details about what creates proficiency in English speaking in their successful classes. The Claremont Youth Master Plan (So. CA, 1995) came about with the “40 Developmental Assets” being promoted when some school districts identified risks with increasing numbers of families with two working parents. When a community works together, programs from 7am before school starts and programs after school can provide much more than keeping kids occupied. What about linking community service with unemployment benefits – giving the job searcher meaningful activity in times between jobs?
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Now take a good look at the families of those who have fallen way behind. Do they encourage English to be spoken in the home? Most of them might not and believe that Spanish will over take English in the state. Now we must cut out the bi-lingual programs which so far have proven themselves a waste of my tax dollars and yours.
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People are able to master academic language in a 2nd language better if they have mastered academic language in their 1st language. Being unable to provide bilingual education has handicapped schools as well as students. It’s time to rid our politics, and our schools, of xenophobic and reactionary impulses.
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I don’t think we do a very good job of correctly identifying or assessing ELLs… then to compound matters,we can’t recognize a square peg when we try to fit it into a round hole: LAUSD apparently defies Highpoint’s (publisher used in our ELL programs) recommendation of taking 5-7 years to implement the program and instead paces teachers to do it in 3.
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John good article. What the report does not do is go find the many schools in California that have a much higher achievement level with ELs. Find out what they do and do more of it than what LAUSD has been doing. John
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Anyone who would believe that the families of EL students truly believe that Spanish will overtake English demonstrates a lack of understanding of the families we serve as educators. What we have not addressed, as educators is a coordinated and coherent practice of teaching English to EL students and holding educators, schools and districts accountable. In the same breath we fail to address the needs of the SEL student who are US born, but come from areas and schools that are at risk. The ganas is not there to boldly address these issues. As a CALTOG member we hope others will speak up.
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Well said, Wendy. I firmly believe that enlisting, and to the extent realistic requiring, community support from parents, older siblings, relatives, family friends, parish / church staff, out-of-work neighbors, etc. is critical not only to the success of ELL students, but of ANY student who comes from a family that desires the best academically for their children, but lacks the skills, knowledge, confidence, awareness, finances or other resources needed to support the academic efforts of their children, or lack thereof in some extreme cases. While the school system has the mandate to educate all, families, and in some cases, communities as a proxy for the family, have an obligation to fulfill their portion of the social contract, by whatever means available to them. Focusing on the school system without also focusing on the family, and its greater community, however, only addresses a subset of the determinants of student success.
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I’m not going to go into sociological speculation about why Chinese ELLs tend to be higher achievers, but that’s reality (overall, on average). In places like San Jose with high numbers of Vietnamese immigrants, same thing. I would place a pretty large bet that schools with both high numbers of ELLs and high achievement tend to be heavily Chinese or Vietnamese. I’m speaking as a veteran of 24 kid-years in the plurality-Chinese San Francisco public schools. (OMG, did I just give John Mockler a piece of information — the only person in California who understands the budget?)
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My grandfather came to the US in 1907. Nobody taught him English. He taught himself, he worked and fed himself. He saved his money and brought over relative after relative. As an educator, I do my best to teach and support EL students. But, if the EL families and communities don’t do their part by valuing the free education they receive here and work hard to make a difference for themselves- there isn’t any curriculum or nationally ranked teacher that is going to make a difference.
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Also, re schools with high percentages of ELLs that buck the trend by showing high achievement: I once saw a report on that topic, which I noticed did not mention the issue of different ethnicities. I took random looks at some of the schools the report cited as outlier successes, and I was right — it was the schools with higher Asian numbers that were bucking the trend. (The report, which was purporting to have found the magical secret, failed to mention that.) … As when “fool me twice shame on me” posters here cite material from propaganda organizations to supposedly bolster their arguments, never trust; always check. Start here:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/apireports.asp
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It is very hard to teach a student who does not speak english, ELL. As a teacher and working at a school students have rights to speak their native language, their parents speak the native language, so how do we get bi-lingual children to understand english in 45 minutes 5 days a week? I’m tired of being blamed for students not getting it. Im tired of being blamed for their low English and math scores. Im tired of being the fall person (s) for the failure of the students. Im tired!!!!!
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If only I had a dime for every time I came to educatedguess.org… Great article.
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