http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/02 ... _27_06.txt


Bilingual charters common in state

By: LOUISE ESOLA - Staff Writer

OCEANSIDE ---- Bilingual charter schools, like the one now being proposed in Oceanside, are becoming more common in California, according to a California Charter Schools Association official.

Spanish, Russian, German, and Chinese are among the languages spoken and taught alongside English at more than 40 charter schools throughout the state, said Gary Larson, spokesman for the association that advocates for all 574 charter schools in the state.

Imagine Charter School ---- a Spanish-English program now on the table for the Oceanside Unified School District as its fourth charter school ---- could be one of the next.


The program is being put together by Imagine Inc., a Virginia-based company that has established almost 40 charters nationwide, and Integracion Latina Inc., an Oceanside-based social service organization.

The Oceanside Unified School District's governing board will learn about the proposal at tonight's school board meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the district conference room at 2111 Mission Ave. A public hearing on the charter proposal is slated for 7 p.m.

A proposal for a bilingual school in Oceanside may surprise some, since the district made national headlines in 1998 when it embraced a state law --- Proposition 227 ---- that virtually banned bilingual education in California public schools unless parents signed waivers asking that their children be taught in two languages.

In Oceanside, where roughly 40 percent of the students are Spanish-speaking beginner-English students, the district has routinely denied all waivers and pushed forward with a strict program of English immersion.

According to Juan Martinez, an Imagine consultant, the program is designed so that students who are not fluent in English will be instructed in English for about 30 percent of the school day and will gradually increase their English classes as they learn the language. The goal is for students to learn English for college, he said.

Meanwhile, Larson said the charter association favors bilingual programs, but "with caution."

When Prop. 227 passed, bilingual charter schools sprang up as a way to maintain dual language programs and collect state money. According to the state's charter schools law, passed years earlier in 1992, charter schools are exempt from most education codes.

Larson said some post-Prop. 227 schools failed because they took the state's "failed experiment" of bilingual education and pushed forward.

"Most students were coming out of those programs not fluent in any languages," he said. "There is a general consensus that they were leaving kids not fluent. Schools that try to do that just to escape the state standards are setting themselves up for failure. (Bilingual programs) are held to a much higher standard than your standard public school."

After the state law, newspaper reports stated that more than 100 bilingual charters surfaced.

Although he has known of several bilingual charters that have failed, many up and coming bilingual programs are successes, Larson said. Currently, there are almost 50 in place.

One example of a successful program, Larson said, is the Albert Einstein Academy in San Diego, which teaches students to be fluent in German and English. According to standardized test scores for that school, more than half of the students there perform above grade level in the core subjects, math and English. That's well above the county and state average.

Larson said bilingual charter schools that want to make the grade must do more work than traditional schools because charters are tested alongside traditional programs and, like all schools, are held accountable in all subjects. The dual language studies are secondary, he said.

"(Effective) bilingual charter schools are implementing programs at school-site level and educators are designing bilingual programs that meet the needs of students," he said. "One of the keys to it really working is the students have to buy into the whole program and commit to the whole cycle of the school."

Contact staff writer Louise Esola at (760) 901-4151 or lesola@nctimes.com.