Thread: OREGON: should state pay for bilingual education ?

July 13, 2008

Bilingual debate

The bilingual education initiative has brought out strong feelings from all sides of the issue

By Thelma Guerrero-Huston
Statesman Journal

The debate about whether public school students should be taught in English or their native language has come to Oregon.

In November, voters in the state will be asked to decide on an initiative that would limit the amount of time English-language learners can be taught in their native tongue.

The initiative has attracted people from both sides of the bilingual education aisle and has even divided the Hispanic community.

"This is not against Hispanics," Bill Sizemore, who crafted the initiative, said about the petition. "It's not anti-immigrant in any way, in fact, it's the opposite."

He said the initiative was needed to help stop school districts from sidelining immigrant students in six-year bilingual courses, rather than teaching the students English so they can succeed in this country.

Such warehousing of students prevents them from learning English and from getting well-paying jobs, which forces them into lower-paying jobs such as entry-level fast-food positions because they can't speak English, Sizemore said.

"It's an insult to Hispanic people," he said.

Salem resident Dave Herber, who owns a number of fast-food restaurants in town, and who mentors elementary school students, shares the same sentiments.

"In my business, I hire high school students and high school graduates," Herber said. "The majority of these kids (who went through bilingual education) cannot speak, read or write English. These kids already speak Spanish in their homes, so they don't need us to teach them Spanish. They need us to teach them English."

Aeryca Steinbauer, the statewide coordinator of CAUSA, an immigrant-advocacy group in Woodburn, rejects those arguments.

"What Bill Sizemore has done is create a one-size-fits-all model that takes local control of these programs out of the hands of teachers and parents and puts it in his hands," Steinbauer said.

Like Steinbauer, opponents of the initiative argue that English as a Second Language programs give many English learners the chance to study key subjects and develop critical thinking skills before they are able to master English.

But supporters of the initiative, such as Jim Ludwick, the president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, a nonprofit group in McMinnville that opposes illegal immigration, say the current system is a sham and fails too many children.

"This makes Oregon educators start to do what they should have been doing all along, which is to teach children English," Ludwick said.

In June, the Oregon Secretary of States's office announced that enough signatures had been collected to put the initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot. Officials have not yet given it a ballot measure number. More than 120,000 signatures were collected. Of those, 83,248 were valid.

The initiative states that its goal is "to insure (sic) the cessation of the long-term English as a Second Language programs currently in use" in Oregon public schools.

Besides pointing out grammatical errors contained in the initiative, some experts, such as Lynn Reer, say the document's wording is "so confusing and self-contradictory, that there is no way to anticipate what the consequences of this measure will be."

Reer is a visiting assistant professor of English for Speakers of Other Languages/Bilingual Education in the graduate school of teacher education at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. She is one of two people invited to be on a committee that will help write the measure's explanatory statement for the Voter's Pamphlet.

According to the initiative, limits that would be placed on teaching students in a language other than English would differ by grade levels, with less time allowed for younger students.

The initiative does not make exceptions for children who are developmentally delayed, for whom learning English could take more than two years.

Currently, school boards approve the budget for each individual school district. The boards also approve the various programs taught in schools within their districts.

Statewide, there are 64,000 non-English speakers, according to Oregon Department of Education.

In Salem-Keizer School District, there are 6,468 non-English-speaking students, with 90 percent of those being Spanish-speakers.

Bilingual education in Salem-Keizer School District began in 1974. The program is administered in accordance with the federal Office of Civil Rights and must be in compliance with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Parents in the district can choose whether to place their child in the program.

Salem-Keizer School Board has not yet discussed the initiative, nor taken a stance on it.

Rick Kimball, a member and former chairman of the school board, said he supports programs that help non-English-speakers learn English.

"I believe all students learn differently, and we need different ways for non-English-speaking students to learn English," Kimball said. "Focusing on one single way to accomplish that does a disservice to a percentage of students who perhaps cannot learn English by that method."

Many language experts in Oregon and across the nation say it usually takes non-English-speaking children five to seven years of bilingual education instruction to be ready for mainstream English classes.

English as a Second Language in Oregon schools "has got more to do with building empires in public schools than it has to do with educating children," Ludwick said. "It actually cheats children because a great deal of the federal money that's suppose to be put in the ESL programs goes to the teachers' union instead."

That not's true, said Patrick Burk, the chief policy officer for the Oregon Department of Education.

"Those federal dollars have to be accounted for to the federal government," Burk said.

That's accomplished through the Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives, which tracks students' development and attainment of English language proficiency, Burk said.

Last year, Oregon received $19.2 million from the federal government for programs that help non-English-speakers learn English.

About $7.6 million of those went toward educating non-English-speakers in the state's public school system.

Another $11.6 million went to migrant education. In addition to helping migrant children learn English, the monies also help pay for tutors, summer school, support for community involvement and to help the families. Campaigns for and against Sizemore's initiative are being mounted by groups that include parents, teachers, unions, politicians and various organizations.

Francisco López, a consultant for the Salem-Keizer Coalition for Equality, said he opposes the initiative because it would have an adverse affect on non-English-speaking students.

"It would be one big step backward," López said. "Not only would it take away the tools necessary for these children to successfully master English, it would hurt the state's economy, and it put the decision of whether these children are ready to transition into English in the hands of a political group and out of the hands of the people who know best about whether a child is ready to be taught only in English."

But Maria Muñoz, a native of El Salvador, said she has seen firsthand how bilingual education programs can fail a child.

"My oldest daughter was placed in bilingual education in elementary school, and she never fully grasped the English language," Muñoz said. "She's in college now and still struggles to read, write and speak English. As a result, I refused to allow my younger sons to be placed in English as a Second Language classes, and they both speak, read and write well in English."

tguerrero-huston@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6815

The debate about whether public school students should be taught in English or their native language has come to Oregon.

Let's cut the PC spin. "Native language" in this case is only ONE language. How come students whose native language is not spanish? How come those students are able to learn English and succeed, while spanish speakers are being taught in spanish and FAIL?

This has been proven time and time again, you cannot teach someone another language while catering to them in their native language! They will not learn the new language. How many spanish speakers have lived here 10-30 years and STILL can't speak English? MILLIONS! How many kids born in the US, to those families, CANNOT speak English? MILLIONS!

Now tell me again how this program "helps" them?