More Schools Shunning Bilingual Methods

A growing number of Orange County school districts are spurning traditional bilingual education in favor of programs that steep students in English, setting a state precedent in a divisive classroom debate.

The insurgents say they are reforming a system they contend fails to give students the language skills needed to advance in society.

But bilingual education advocates fear that the movement could undo hard-won gains in the struggle to end discrimination against vulnerable students.

Over the past year and a half, three school districts based in Westminster and Anaheim have won state approval for programs that drill more English into nonfluent students in the earliest grades. Out are quotas for credentialed bilingual teachers and classes taught in the students’ native language. In are part-time, bilingual teacher aides and English “immersion.”

In the past, some California districts have experimented with alternatives to what has become the cornerstone of traditional bilingual education: native-language instruction.

But three districts in Orange County are the only ones in California so far to capitalize on a 2-year-old policy that allows broad exemptions to the state’s bilingual teaching rules. The state Board of Education, which wrote that policy, granted the waivers.

On Thursday, trustees of a fourth district, Orange Unified, are expected to vote to solicit approval for another English-based teaching plan. Orange Unified, with 28,000 students, more than the other three combined, and a sizable Spanish-speaking population, would be the largest district yet to petition the state board for such a bilingual exemption. Trustees are promising to move forward despite an outcry from parents who support the bilingual program.

Bilingual advocates say it is no surprise that Orange County, known for political conservatism, is a fount of opposition to bilingual education. But opponents of bilingual education say this is not a political decision, simply one to help students.

“I’ve been called a racist, and that bothers me a great deal,” Orange trustee Robert Viviano said. “I want to see that all these children get a chance at good employment and good opportunities. English is the language of commerce, communication and transportation all over the world. These kids absolutely have to have it.”

Top education officials in Orange say the results of bilingual education over the past 20 years have been disappointing. They say kids with little English aren’t moving fast enough into the mainstream.

Educators say the dissident movement here reflects a gradual shift by the state to grant more local control over the issue.

On April 2, the state Senate Education Committee approved a bill proposed by state Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado) to give local officials more leeway to choose their own teaching methods for teaching students with limited English. But bilingual education advocates charge that the would-be reformm’ers are abandoning kids who most need help.

“If students don’t have access to the core curriculum while they’re learning English, we’re recreating a system of haves and have-nots, a system perpetuating the lack of achievement for minority students,” said Magaly Lavadenz, director of state and legislative affairs for the California Assn. for Bilingual Education.

The revolt here comes as California schools confront an exploding population of children with limited English, most of them Spanish speakers. Last year the state counted 1.3 million students from kindergarten through 12th grade who are not fluent in English, a quarter of the total enrollment of 5.3 million. The numbers have been growing steadily for more than a decade.

Moreover, the state has fewer than half of the estimated 34,400 credentialed bilingual teachers it needs.

For more than 20 years, federal law has ordered schools to take steps to ensure that limited-English students have equal access to school curricula. In that time, California generally has required school districts with high numbers of limited-English students to teach them first in their home language and later move them into mainstream classes.

That method is backed by a major camp of teaching experts. Their research shows that literacy acquired in the native language can be readily transferred to English. Meanwhile, they contend, students taught in their own language won’t fall behind in other subjects such as math and social studies.

They contend that the lack of bilingual teachers is no argument to abolish bilingual education. “If there were a shortage of algebra teachers . . . we would not vote to drop algebra,” wrote Stephen Krashen, a USC education professor, in a recent book.

However, another academic camp says that native-language teaching has not proved its worth, and that an English-based curriculum can show positive results.

In 1993, the Little Hoover Commission, a state watchdog agency, reviewed the academic tug of war and concluded that there was no reason to support one camp over another.

A look inside two Orange County schools found teachers passionately attached to two different methods.

Jordan Elementary in Orange, which uses the traditional bilingual approach, draws on a heavily Latino population. From kindergarten through third grade, students are divided into Spanish-predominant and English-predominant classes. Principal Kit Dameron said her Spanish-speaking students are doing better on literacy tests than the fluent English group. And after the two groups merge, she said, results show little discernible difference in English skills by sixth grade.

A poster school for the other side is Robert M. Pyles Elementary in Stanton. It is run by the Magnolia School District, which won a bilingual exemption in August. The school, which draws many of its students from low-income neighborhoods, has won state recognition for rising test scores.

“We don’t water down the curriculum,” said principal Elizabeth Nordyke. “We don’t segregate, and we don’t put (students) on special tracks.”

Though seven of 10 students at Pyles speak limited English, teachers conduct classes in English and adorn their rooms mainly with English material. The school also employs 20 part-time aides, 13 fluent in Spanish and seven in Vietnamese.

The aides are not translators. Rather, they give brief tutorials that “preview” and “review” what teachers say in English.

The first three districts have 22 months to prove themselves. Then the state board can make their exemptions permanent, or revoke them.

Magnolia Supt. Paul Mercier said the district will go all-out to show that its methods work. “The question is, when you believe you’re doing the right thing for kids, are you willing to go to the wall on it?” Mercier said. “Yeah, we are. We think what we’re doing is right.”