No Rise in English Fluency in O.C. Students, Study Says

Students in Orange County are not learning English much faster than they were before California curtailed bilingual education three years ago, according to state data.

In fact, the rate decreased from 7% in 1999 to 6.7% in 2000, according to a survey compiled by the Children and Families Commission, a county agency funded by revenue from the state tobacco tax.

What’s more, the 6.7% rate at which non-English speaking students are being designated as having learned English is lower than the state average of 7.8% or Los Angeles County’s 9.1% rate.

The O.C. figures, drawn from state Department of Education data, were part of a $75,000 study on a variety of issues involving youth, family and community, which was presented at a “State of the County” conference Tuesday put on by Cal State Fullerton.

Educators downplayed the figures, although some expressed surprise that Orange County’s rate was lower than Los Angeles’.

“Are you kidding?” said Howard Bryan, director of English Language Development for the Santa Ana Unified School District.

But state and local officials cautioned that the data should not be used to evaluate whether districts are succeeding at teaching English.

“It’s one measure,” said Lauri Burnham, manager of language proficiency for the state Department of Education. “It’s not a real valid measure of student services.”

About 24% of students statewide and about 30% of students in Orange County are not fluent in English, according to state figures. In June 1998, California voters approved Proposition 227, an initiative sharply curtailing the teaching of non-English-speaking students in their native language.

Many proponents of the law argued that bilingual education, in which students are taught subjects such as math, history and science in their native language so they don’t fall behind, was actually hindering children’s efforts to learn English.

Burnham said many voters may have wrongly assumed that students would learn English in a year or two now that they are taught mostly in English. But it can take a long time to become fluent enough in a foreign language to be able to read and write well in it, she said.

“It’s something most students just don’t do in a year,” she said.

The rate at which students become fluent is figured by comparing the number of English learners in a district with how many students graduated to English fluency at the end of that year.

The 2001 Orange County Community Indicators Report, which relies on a variety of sources for its information, also concludes that most of the licensed child care in Orange County--93%--is unaccredited, and that while more students are gaining eligibility to enter University of California and California State University systems, that increase is occurring largely among whites and Asians, not Latinos.