Bar is low for bilingual teachers
Amid educator shortage, state doesn't assess literacy skills

By Katherine Leal Unmuth
The Dallas Morning News, November 27, 2006

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 7b5de.html

Thousands of children take the TAKS tests in Spanish each year in reading, math and science.

But what does the state do to make sure the bilingual teachers who instruct them can read and write in Spanish? Nothing.

Texas tests only speaking ability. Teachers answer 15 questions into a tape recorder to become certified in bilingual education. The questions are written in English. The answers are spoken in Spanish. Other states with bilingual programs require extensive testing of literacy and listening skills in Spanish.

For several years, Texas education officials have worked on a more rigorous test. In 2004, they approved the standards for a test that includes literacy, though a recent switch in testing companies has delayed the process.

A new test won't be an easy sell to school districts already struggling to find enough qualified teachers to handle the unprecedented growth in limited English proficient students. The fear is that tougher standards would only worsen the shortage.

But experts say that because children are being taught to read and write in the language, they should learn it correctly. Most don't get Spanish literacy skills outside of school. Plus, students taking the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in Spanish need more advanced vocabulary and literacy skills as they get older.

'If our students are expected to perform bi-literately, our teachers should be as well,' said Isabella Piña-Hinojosa, director of bilingual and ESL programs in Carrollton-Farmers Branch.

But the reality is that the number of qualified bilingual teachers in Texas is far short of demand. Last year, about 22 percent of 12,544 teachers instructing in bilingual/ESL classrooms at the first grade level and higher were not certified in the field, according to the State Board for Educator Certification. Many were not certified at all. At the pre-k and kindergarten level, the rate was about 40 percent. Last year, 376,170 children statewide were enrolled in bilingual programs.

'We should keep it on the burner for a while,' Leo Gomez, a past president of the Texas Association for Bilingual Education, said of any new test. 'In five or so years we'll be in a better position to raise the standards and not affect the teacher shortage.'

Delayed test

Many people expected a new test to be in place last month. The certification board had worked with a panel of educators and the National Evaluation Systems testing company for two years to write a new test for bilingual teacher certification. But the state switched to the Educational Testing Service on Sept. 1.

Janice Reyna, manager of educator standards for the Texas Education Agency, said the switch will cause the process to start over. A new test could take another couple of years to develop, she said. 'The entire test will be based on the standard that all teachers must demonstrate literacy,' Dr. Reyna said.

The director of TEA's bilingual program, Georgina Gonzalez, declined to comment. A TEA spokeswoman said Ms. Gonzalez could not speak about the new test because of a lawsuit pending against the state by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The suit charges that children learning English are failing tests at high rates because of lax monitoring of the bilingual program by state officials.

Some doubt a tougher test will get anywhere in a political climate that is split over immigration issues. In addition, many oppose any action that would worsen the bilingual teacher shortage.

Bill Pulte, director of Southern Methodist University's teacher training programs in bilingual education, said college-level literacy skills in Spanish aren't essential to be good bilingual teachers.

'People who say they need to be perfect in Spanish literacy to teach in kindergarten – that's not true,' he said. 'They should be very strong orally in Spanish ... The extent to which teachers have to write in Spanish is not that great.'

Joe Bernal, a Texas State Board of Education member who sponsored the 1969 legislation legalizing bilingual education in Texas, believes any new test would block good teachers from the classroom.

'Adding higher standards may be a good idea, but certainly not at this point,' he said. 'This isn't the time.'

Texas has struggled for years to find teachers qualified in both English and Spanish.

Large scale

Because state law requires bilingual education whenever 20 or more children in a grade share a language, Texas offers the program on a much larger scale than any other state. Bilingual education is offered through the fifth grade.

'We don't have the language resources to implement bilingual education,' said Michael Guerrero, a University of Texas-Pan American professor who has extensively studied the issue.

The shortage is so severe, in fact, that districts have increasingly turned to alternative certification programs. The Dallas school district, for example, runs its own summer program for professionals changing careers. Applicants to the Dallas bilingual training program must pass a spoken test in Spanish and English and write an essay in both languages.

Teachers who already have bilingual certification through the state do not have to pass the district's writing exam.

Districts have also fought the shortage by recruiting teachers from overseas – but that has created complaints about some teachers' English proficiency.

Dr. Guerrero said many Mexican-Americans may have grown up speaking Spanish at home but never learned to properly read or write in the language.

That's what worries Dr. Gomez, an associate professor at UT-PA, who has worked for years on developing and researching dual-language programs. The state needs to do a better job emphasizing Spanish instruction to its students if it expects to have enough teachers in the pipeline who know proper Spanish, he said.

'Many of these teachers are products of the same system,' Dr. Gomez said. 'While they came into schools as children from a Spanish-speaking background, they leave our schools very weak in the language and as adults want to be bilingual teachers.'

The lack of academic Spanish was a concern as well at a bilingual teacher conference earlier this year put on by the University of North Texas, where college students saw the kinds of questions that might appear on a more rigorous state certification test.

The most frightening, several said, was writing an essay.

'Growing up Tex-Mex makes it tough, using the slang we do,' said Blanca Rodriguez, a paraprofessional studying to become a bilingual teacher.

Dual-language programs

The proficiency of teachers in both Spanish and English has become even more important in recent years with the increasing popularity of dual-language programs stressing 'bi-literacy' and a 50/50 split in the time spent teaching in each language. These classes attract students learning Spanish as well as those learning English as a second language.

In Luz Soto-Dimas' bilingual second-grade classroom at Farmers Branch Elementary, children spend half the day in each language. Writing on the walls is in English and Spanish.

'It's a big need,' Ms. Soto-Dimas said of Spanish literacy. 'We are spelling and writing here. I have to send notes home to parents in Spanish.'

Those who take the state's certification test must answer a series of prompts that involve such tasks as giving directions, lending advice and narrating a story based on pictures.

Ms. Soto-Dimas said bilingual certification is based not on correct answers but on someone's opinion of a teacher's speaking abilities. She said she would support a less subjective exam.

Last year, about 90 percent of those who took the Texas Oral Proficiency Test in Spanish passed, according to the TEA.

Other states that offer bilingual programs test teachers' literacy in the second language. New York, California and Illinois, for example, also offer tests in numerous other languages, such as Mandarin and Hebrew. Texas tests only for Spanish and French proficiency. Foreign language teachers take the same test.

On a sample New York exam, teachers listen to a conversation between a parent and teacher in Spanish and must answer multiple-choice questions about what was discussed.

A sample California exam asks teachers to write an essay in Spanish – and asks them to translate a passage from English into Spanish.

The differences between tests stir criticism of Texas' standards.

'I guess this is why bilingual programs get such a bad rap,' said Patricia Gandara, an education professor at the University of California-Davis. 'If a teacher can't read or write in Spanish, that's not a good classroom. ... If Texas is not testing it, they don't know what their skills are.'

In Texas, bilingual teachers must also pass the general certification exam and a bilingual exam focusing on theory that is written in English.

Dora Morón, director of the Irving school district's bilingual program, said she is concerned about the new test being too difficult.

For one thing, colleges would have to rethink their curriculum. Ms. Morón said she earned her undergraduate degree in bilingual education without having to take any courses in Spanish.

Jose Ruiz-Escalante, a UT-PA professor who served on the state panel to develop the new test, said students often don't take Spanish classes in college because they pass proficiency exams upon entrance. He'd like to see bilingual programs focus more on academic Spanish, especially writing and grammar.

Dr. Reyna from the TEA said it's not a matter of whether there will be a more rigorous test in Texas, but when.

'It's a very sensitive issue in Texas any time there's change,' she said. 'But we're working on making things better.'