Posted on 10/27/2004 11:21:02 AM PDT by Tamar1973
Teachers, school district disagree over new rules under Prop. 227
For the first time in years, Santa Rosa City Schools will have no students in bilingual classes this fall.
The elimination of bilingual education is the newest result of Proposition 227, a 1998 voter-approved law that sought to limit instruction to English in California's public schools.
Although the proposition allows parents who want their children instructed in other languages to receive waivers, it does not allow bilingual instruction unless at least 20 waivers are requested in any one grade.
This year, for the first time, no Santa Rosa class had 20 or more waivers.
Some teachers blame the school board for the drop in parent requests, saying the board this year imposed a tough new interpretation of Proposition 227 that limits the students who are eligible for bilingual waivers.
"We finally got a program that would work and they took it away," said Colleen Pedrazzi, a third-grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary School.
This year, the number of requests for bilingual instruction fell to 48 from 342 in 2003-04, according to a new district report.
Last year, 252 elementary students were in bilingual classes at two schools: Lincoln and Burbank.
School board Vice President Noreen Carvolth disputed that the waiver process is now more difficult. She said the district did a better job this year in explaining the various options to parents and they apparently chose to have their children taught in English instead of Spanish.
As for the new rules approved this year, Carvolth said the board members have a responsibility to abide by Proposition 227.
"The state voted and we have a law now," she said. "You can't wallow in what was because it is no longer."
A year ago, Latino advocates and representatives from the California Rural Legal Assistance sharply criticized the board, saying the district was failing to adequately notify parents of their rights to bilingual education. The critics also urged the board to expand bilingual programs in the district.
School officials vigorously denied any notification failures and approved new rules spelling out how schools would alert parents of their options under the law.
The board also moved to clarify the waiver rules. Previously, waivers were approved simply because the child spoke English as a second language. Now, parents must show their child has an additional special educational need.
The board also limited the instruction time in Spanish for such classes. The maximum time dropped to 30 to 60 minutes a day for language arts instruction, rather than 90 minutes under the old rules.
Last year, under the former rules, all 342 waiver requests were approved in Santa Rosa. This year, 31 of the 48 waivers were approved. Administrators said they had no more than six waiver requests at any school in the same grade. Thus, no school will have bilingual classes.
Officials noted all but 12 of last year's waiver requests came from Lincoln and Burbank parents, even though four other schools each had more than 200 students with limited skill speaking English.
On Tuesday at Lincoln, third-grade teacher Deborah Gomes was teaching basic English concepts to 20 students, 17 of whom had been reading mostly in Spanish last year as second graders in bilingual classes.
She gathered the class before a green chalk board after some students had trouble understanding how to read and pronounce such words as "he," "wet," "meat" and "bread."
In the regular English programs, the students get such instructions in earlier grades. In bilingual instruction, the students read first in Spanish as they are taught to speak English, then they make the transition to reading mostly in English later in third-grade.
Now, with no bilingual classes, Gomes is trying "to plug the holes" for students who are quickly switching from one program to another.
Many teachers are skeptical, she said, but "we're working as hard as we can to make it work."
Lincoln teachers have long insisted that bilingual instruction better prepares students because those who read well in their first language can more easily switch to English, especially after they have learned to speak English.
Some teachers voiced concern that in an era when speaking two languages is viewed as a valuable asset, their students will lose their fluency in Spanish and yet not read well enough to grasp in English the more demanding academic language that they will increasingly face as they advance in school.
Board President Jere Jacobs said his colleagues have worked hard to ensure parents are adequately informed of their rights under Proposition 227. He said board members also looked carefully at the research on whether English-only or bilingual instruction is superior.
"The data is confusing at best," Jacobs said. "But the law in this state is children will be taught predominantly in English."
In the past four years, the enrollment in bilingual programs for students with limited English skills has dropped 22 percent statewide to about 138,000 students. Such a drop was expected as school districts began to reduce or end their bilingual programs after Proposition 227 passed, said David Dolson, a specialist with the state Department of Education.
Imagine that, parents actually CHOOSING for their children to learn English. That's the problem with liberals, they want people to have the right to kill their children but no rights to choose anything else.
ping
assimilation is a GOOD thing
GOOD! You come to this country, you better learn the language.
This is BS. I'd like those Lincoln teachers to produce some facts to back up this assertion. I'm certainly not going to take their word for it.
I taught first grade in the mid fifties and had two kids in the class that didn't speak a word of English. I was told to just talk to the rest of the class and they would pick up the English.
By June they spoke accent free English and were in the top reading group.
Immersion is the best way!
Good grief. Kids that young are SPONGES. Their minds will absorb whatever you put in front of them. Drop them right in a full immersion English program from day one, with perhaps a bilingual tutor to answer questions outside of class, and by the end of the first year, the child will be fluent. These teachers are whiny unionist job-protectors.
Ping.
Spanish speaking parents WANT their children to learn English - every place where parents have been given a choice, they seem to chose English. In NYC, they were suing to keep from being assigned to bilingual classes.
Yep, exactly. Our parents came here legally in the 1950s and though of course they speak perfect English, we all spoke another language at home (still do). The four of us children learned English in first grade just like you said. A couple of us even ended up in writing fields. Bilingual education is a waste and needs to go away.
See my post #6
When my son was in kindergarten a little boy came from Japan and spoke no English when he started school in January. By June, he spoke perfect English. This is one of many examples I have seen first hand. It seems to me that it's more of a handicap to delay learning Engligh.
You're right. The younger they are, the easier it is for them to learn multiple languages. The older they are, the harder it is. Bi-lingual education quickly becomes a crutch which prevents the students full assimilation into the school system and prevents them from ever being fluent in English.
Common sense strikes again!
Yup, I did, right after posting mine. Your experience bears out what everyone with common sense knows. Of course, NEA zombies don't have common sense, so that's why we're in this mess.
I personally know dozens of kids who have come from Mexico, not speaking a lick of English, and they were fluent by the end of the first year. Out in our rural district, we have no bilingual education budget. They learn English, the language of this land.
My daughter wanted to learn to speak Spanish. I told her to watch Spanish tv and listen to Spanish radio. That worked pretty darn fast.
Shouldn't that be, "No bilingual classes in Saint Rose? ;o)
"Shouldn't that be, "No bilingual classes in Saint Rose? ;o)"
You would think, but to be fair, Spanish was spoken in Santa Rosa before English was.
On another track. I knew a guy that had had nothing but bilingual education all the way through high school. He couldn't even read English and could barely speak it. The liberals didn't do him any favors by giving him a crutch. It crippled him in the end.
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