ORANGE : Trustee Asks Review of Language Policies

A school board member has taken on the politically sensitive issue of bilingual education and asked administrators to review district policies.

Trustee Robert H. Viviano, who said he is concerned that students taught in their native languages will lack crucial English skills, requested a two-year study to measure the effectiveness of these programs.

The Orange Unified School District has taught some students in their native languages for 20 years without any attempt to determine whether the program has helped them, Viviano said.

Assistant Supt. Neil J. McKinnon said that he will recommend ways to evaluate the programs at the April 19 school board meeting.

About 25% of the district’s 27,000 students have a native language other than English, McKinnon said. Most of them are enrolled in “English immersion” classes, but 20% are taught academic subjects in other languages. Parents of elementary students may choose between the programs. (All high school students are taught in English.)

“In a sense, we have a ready-made laboratory with the two different programs to do a study,” McKinnon said.

Viviano asked a speaker from the Research in English Acquisition and Development group in Washington to address the board last week.

Fluency in English is a “civil rights matter,” said Robert Rossier, a language expert with READ. “We do not have any evidence that primary language instruction is leading to learning English so these children can join the mainstream.”

A teacher urged the board not to be hasty, however. Students “have to learn the curriculum of their grade level,” said Gloria Buford, a teacher at California Elementary School. “We tend to forget that when we focus on English instruction.”