Debate Focuses on School Standards for Immigrants

The plight of immigrant students dominated discussion over proposed statewide high school graduation standards Wednesday at the first of two Southern California hearings on those standards--with the state’s two largest advocacy groups for bilingual students taking dramatically different stands.

Only about two dozen teachers, parents and school administrators attended the meeting at the Los Angeles Convention Center, one of seven scheduled around California by a state panel trying to create first-ever graduation standards. Several speakers blamed the sparse attendance on the lack of adequate notification and the $6 parking fee.

Two representatives of California Teachers of English as a Second Language said it is unreasonable to expect the state’s 1.3 million students who begin school speaking other languages to meet the same benchmarks as their English-speaking peers.

Separate standards should be established that “take into account their language acquisition phase,” said Linda Jensen, who instructs teachers on how to teach English as a second language at UCLA.

But Maria S. Quezada, president-elect of the California Assn. for Bilingual Education, said creating two sets of standards will further stigmatize bilingual students and limit their educational opportunities. Instead, she said, school districts should be provided additional resources to “make sure that these students have the tools to meet the standards.”

The issue is emerging as one of the thorniest in establishing statewide English and math standards, which at first would simply outline what teachers should teach and what students should learn--but could lead to tests to help determine whether a student graduates from high school.

The suggested standards--revealed last week after 10 months of study by two panels of educators, academics and parents selected by the state’s top education leaders--prescribe specific skills that graduates should possess, ranging from essay writing abilities to knowledge of basic algebra.

After the last of seven public hearings, to be held Dec. 4 in San Diego, the proposal will be submitted to the new Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards.

That commission, with a majority of members appointed by the governor, began meeting in September under a state legislative mandate to adopt standards for all grade levels in all subjects, starting with English and math.

The commission is not bound to adopt any of the proposed standards recommended to it. But Barry Munitz, chancellor of the California State University system, suggested Wednesday that the more political body might welcome the “neutral” findings from the standards panels.

“They are not required to . . . but the clearer and the firmer the recommendations are, the likelier the [new] commission will use them as their base,” said Munitz, one of six educational leaders who created the math and English standards panels last year out of concern that so many high school graduates needed remedial courses when they reached college.

The Los Angeles Unified School District separately adopted standards last summer for its schools from kindergarten through high school.

But a key problem with the standards movement is the lack of standardized tests to determine whether students are meeting the mark. Since the death of the CLAS (California Learning Assessment System) test in 1994, no statewide exam has been developed to measure such skills.

Ironically, one of those who highlighted that shortcoming Wednesday was a key player in the movement to kill CLAS. Simi Valley parent activist Coleen Ary said that to be meaningful, the standards must be enforced with tests that determine whether students will graduate. But even without tests, she told the panel, standards can be helpful if they are very specific.

Other participants said the crucial issue is funding for education in California, which continues to lag behind that of most other states. John Perez, vice president of the Los Angeles teachers union, said establishing higher standards without a corresponding increase in funds is a recipe for failure of schools, teachers and students.

“If we set the bar of standards so high that a student must pole-vault over it,” he said, “we must also give the student a pole.”