L.A. School Board Faces 2 Choices on Ebonics Plan

Ebonics, the controversy of the moment, returns to the Los Angeles Board of Education today in two incarnations--the expansive one and the diminutive one.

One board member, Barbara Boudreaux, wants to ride the tide of public awareness about the academic struggles of African Americans and make specialized English language instruction available to all 93,000 black students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But board President Jeff Horton wants to calm the public outcry over Ebonics, perhaps until after voters have ruled on a proposed $2.4-billion bond measure in April.

He plans to ask fellow board members to follow a game plan that is familiar when public officials want something to die down: requesting further study, in this case of existing Ebonics programs, their import and impact.

As one of the chief backers of the bond measure that narrowly missed passage in November, Horton said, “I would like, in the next couple months, for the community to focus on the physical needs of our schools.”

He said that even without the bond election, however, he would have opted for a “more deliberative process” in considering an Ebonics policy.

Ebonics--a combination of “ebony” and “phonics”--blasted back into the national consciousness two months ago, when the Oakland Unified School District approved a proposal to declare distinctive African American speech patterns a separate language and to teach students in that language when necessary.

Though the Oakland resolution has been diluted since then, it set the tone of the debate, which quickly vaulted from newspaper editorials and radio talk shows into the kitchens and living rooms of America.

Boudreaux, the school board’s only black member, took up the cause, declaring from day one that she would push for something similar in Los Angeles. Though black students make up a far smaller percentage of students in Los Angeles Unified than in Oakland--14% contrasted with 53%--their academic showing is equally poor.

Boudreaux’s proposal attempts to address that problem by training all teachers to understand Ebonics and methods for teaching their students mainstream English. In an attempt to gain the support of her board colleagues, Boudreaux agreed to include all speakers of non-mainstream English, such as those who speak “Spanglish,” and deleted the word Ebonics altogether.

But those compromises were not adequate for Horton or board member Mark Slavkin, who is among those expected to join Horton’s call for further study.

They favor asking the superintendent to provide test score data that might show whether students are helped by existing Ebonics programs and to consider whether training already required for teachers related to bilingual students could be expanded to include Ebonics training.