Language learners: DOE responds
It can’t be pure coincidence that the DOE released a report highlighting gains made by English language learners less than a week after a boisterous mayoral-control hearing in the Bronx. And even though the report cites gains — three times as many students tested as English-proficient in 2008 than in 2003 — the actual percentages are still discouragingly low: In 2008, 13 percent of English language learners (ELLs) demonstrated proficiency, compared with 4 percent in 2003.
Language learners show test-score gains in fourth and eighth grade math as well, according to the DOE’s report (link here to pdf). But the Department of Education omits a key summary from the report in its good-news press release: “Elementary English language learners continue to make larger gains than middle school English language learners… The less dramatic gains by middle school ELLs, relatively flat Regents scores, and flat graduation rates (31.6% in 2003 and 30.8% in 2007) underscore the immediate demand for deeper, more focused attention.” In plain language, younger kids are doing better, as is often the case in language acquisition — and results for older kids aren’t nearly as encouraging.
In today’s Times, Javier Hernandez sets the counterpoint between DOE and education and immigrant advocates. He said that Angela M. Infante, deputy director of the DOE’s Office of ELL, suggested that “grim graduation rates were not the best metric on which to judge the city’s efforts.” But if not graduation rates, then what? The administration has repeatedly cited its obligation and desire to increase the high-school graduation rate and prepare students for post-secondary education and training. Either the buck stops at the graduation rate or it doesn’t.
High-school age language-learners represent 69% of new immigrants to the city schools. With one in four public school pupils born overseas, according to the DOE’s Deputy Chancellor Marcia Lyles, it’s hard to overstate the importance of educating kids born overseas. And with a 26 percent graduation rate, and a Regents diploma graduation rate of about 10 percent, the issue is not likely to fade from the public conversation anytime soon.
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Just imagine that the writer should pick a foreign language that she does not speak, maybe Cantonese, go to the country where the language is spoken, China, and enroll in High School. Do you think she would graduate? The writer is probably college educated and has grappled with the high school curriculum in her first language. However, most, make that all NYC immigrant children do not already have advanced degrees in their first language. In fact, many have had minimal or no schooling and are illiterate in their first language. They often face additional huge obstacles such as overcrowded, pest-ridden housing. I could add greatly to this obstacle list.
The writer is partaking in a fantasy that most immigrant students can, within a few years, learn English well enough to learn grade level content and pass Regents. I doubt if I or the writer could perform a similar feat in Cantonese. Why must we set unrealistic goals and deem it a failure for students and the school system not to reach those goals?
Mary
Comment by Mary — June 17, 2009 @ 7:45 pm