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Debating The English-Only Law In Mass. High Schools
By Bianca Vazquez Toness (WBUR)
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Imagine you’re a teenager from El Salvador. You don’t speak English. You enroll in high school. The school puts you in English immersion classes, four hours a day. The rest of the school day, you study math and art. After a year of this, you start taking more math, plus history and science, all in your strange, new language.
DAVID VILLANUEVA: The first year was horrible.
David Villanueva attends Chelsea High School.
VILLANUEVA: I didn’t know a lot of English. Almost nothing. It was a problem because I didn’t understand what the teachers were saying to me.
Villanueva spent the whole first year trying to understand.
VILLANUEVA: I wanted to leave school. I say, ‘I don’t want to go to school, because English hard.’ And my teachers, they made me speak English a la fuerza. They said, ‘If you speak Spanish in the classroom, we’re going to give you detention.’
Detention for speaking Spanish is a sore issue for Villanueva and his friends, who say some teachers don’t understand the challenges of learning a new language.
Luis Rivas is also from El Salvador, and struggles to make it to school every day. He almost failed last semester for missing too many days. He says he wants to learn English faster, but punishing students for speaking Spanish doesn’t help. He also wishes his teachers were allowed to clarify lessons in Spanish.
LUIS RIVAS (ENGLISH TRANSLATION): They should help immigrant students more, because there are so many immigrant students in this country. And they need to study English and have opportunities. They should be able to speak Spanish and feel welcome here. That’s what I would tell teachers.
Their teacher, Deidre Collins, empathizes.
DEIDRE COLLINS: East Germany was friends and allies with the Soviet Union. And West Germany was friends with France and England and the United States.
Collins teaches history to immigrant students learning English. She modifies her lessons, hammering away at vocabulary and using lots of pictures.
COLLINS: I work really hard to make it interesting. But, you know, I’m teaching to kids whose English level is pretty low, so when I’m teaching about the Holocaust, I have to teach it in a basic, basic way.
It wasn’t always like this, Collins says. Chelsea used to offer history, science and math classes in Spanish, since most of the newcomers were from Latin America.
That was until Massachusetts voters effectively banned bilingual education. In 2002, voters approved a referendum mandating that English be the primary language taught in Massachusetts schools.
Collins says that law has made her school a less-welcoming place.
COLLINS: And so, I think for those kids who were taking one or two classes – a science class or a history class — in their native language, there was that part of the day where they could be 16-year-olds. There was that part of the day where they felt at ease, and just the relaxing moment of when they’ve been speaking a foreign language all day long and you go in somewhere and here you can be yourself and and can express yourself fully and learn something. If you’re a student learning chemistry, you will learn, but you might not learn a lot of chemistry. And, as a 16-year-old, you need to learn chemistry.
But there are a few districts that took a different approach to implementing the law, often referred to as “Question 2″.
SUSAN McGILVRAY-RIVET: The major point is that when Question 2 passed we understood that Question 2 was not about education.
Susan McGilvray-Rivet heads up education services for English-language learners in Framingham.
McGILVRAY-RIVET: It takes five to seven years, for example, for a student — for a typical student — to learn another language at the level of being able to do academic work. We’re not just talking about being able to open a bank account. That’s six months to two years for basic communicative skills. But, for academic skills — and we’re an academic institution, so our responsibility it to prepare kids academically — that’s a five- to seven-year process. So we know that, as a part of that process, we’re not going to stunt a student’s academic growth by only offering them English.
Students here take up to three hours of English immersion a day and then take their regular subject areas in Spanish or Portuguese, like this Portuguese-language ecology class for 9th and 10th graders who came from Brazil.
So, how does Framingham do this if the law prohibited bilingual education? Well, the law allows parents to waive their right to an all-English education. In Framingham, very few parents of high schoolers choose the English-only option.
Kevin Figueiredo is a senior at Framingham High School. She spent a few weeks at a Florida high school when her parents moved there three years ago. The school put her in all-English classes so Figueiredo begged her parents to let her and her sister return to Framingham without them, where she could study in English and her native Portuguese.
KEVIN FIGUEIREDO: I didn’t feel l like I was going to learn anything, and then my sister and I — who like to study a lot — we told my mother that we’re not going to school just to. ‘Cause she said, ‘That’s how you’re gonna learn, you’re going to stay with the Americans and you’re going to be forced to learn.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t want to just learn English, I want to learn everything.’
Figueiredo is now in mainstream classes and will graduate this spring.
Framingham boasts higher graduation rates and MCAS scores than most other districts with large groups of English-learners. About 17 percent of Framingham’s ELL students drop out of school. In Boston, where most of the states’ English-language learners go to school, 28 percent drop out. In Chelsea, it’s almost half.
Many other factors can contribute to kids– especially these kids–dropping out. Immigrant children tend to be poorer, tend to work a lot because they’re helping support themselves and their families. They also move around a lot. And if they go back to their country, it counts as a drop-out. And, even though they are learning English, they’re required to take the same MCAS as every other student.
Still, since the passage of the all-English referendum, these kids are dropping out more and some people think that’s not a coincidence.
MIREN URIARTE: I think what we’ve lost is the flexibility to address different kids’ needs.
Miren Uriarte is a sociology professor at UMass Boston who is researching the effects of the English-only law.
URIARTE: For example, a student that comes into a school system at age 14 may actually require to be taught in Spanish to learn English, whereas a five-year-old could probably be immersed a lot easier.
Many educators agree that older immigrant students are some of the most vulnerable in the school system, including Rosalie Porter. She headed the bilingual education program in Newton and proposed the English-only referendum. Still, she says teaching these newcomers in their native language won’t help them.
ROSALIE PORTER: They’re going to rely on the native language to learn something and they are not going to make the transition to learning in English. You know, it’s not a free ride, these things, especially for older students it’s difficult. And maybe you have to allow high-school students an extra year.
In California and Arizona, where a similar English-only referendum went into law almost 10 years ago, studies show mixed results. Porter is concerned that no one has examined test scores and drop-out rates in the five years since her referendum passed.
PORTER: Show us what’s happening. If it’s not good, tell us why not.
But there has been one study. A review of teachers’ qualifications by the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy shows that most of the educators now in charge of teaching math, science and history to new high-school immigrants don’t have the required training to teach students still learning English.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:49 am
I just listened to the most recent report by Bianca Vazquez Toness. I’ve listened to many of the reports in this series. Today’s segment was excellent, informative, well-rounded. That was excellent reporting. You all should be quite proud.
regards,
vigdor.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Prior to the ill-advised Unz initiative, Massachusetts Transitional Bilinugal Program was the answer to the immersion version program, which many of us in the field called, “the sink or swim” method. I challenge anyone who believes that a ninth grader with no command of the English language that is mandated to take the MCAS after just one year, to immerse themselves in Spanish for one year then take the MCAS in Spanish. What the proponents of this referedum failed to understand, first that language acquisition can not be left to political zealots with no concept of what it takes for children to learn a second language. The other aspect of this ill conceived referendum, is that it negates one of the strenght that the child brings which is a native language and that if properly implemented it can produce truly bilingual students, using the native language to acquire competency in the second language.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
It was wonderful to hear a report that validated what many of us know in the field of educators. We have had five years of an absolute failure of programs for English language learners. We have returned to the days when students sit in classrooms for months having no idea what is going on. They have no equal access to the curriculum. They thus have less oppotunities to be successful, graduate from high school, pass MCAS, etc. On every measure by our state Department of Education, English language learners are last. While every other group in Massachusetts can show some improvement, the achievement of ELLs has decreased every year since the passage of question #2.
When will we realize the horrible mistake that we have made?
Margaret
March 17th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Finally, it’s being talked about!!! This law, passed in 2002 has completely squashed all hopes of “leaving no child behind”. I have lived in a bicultural family due to my mother’s recent adoption of a little girl from Brazil and am now myself an ESL teacher in Fitchburg High School. It’s completely impossible to absorb content at grade level or even a few years below grade level in another language. I studied Spanish for 4 years in high school and 2 yrs in college and i STILL can’t even think about even taking a math class taught by a native spanish speaker….and i LOVE math!
One thing not mentioned in the article was that the students wished the teachers could use spanish to clarify….fortunately, the law DOES allow this…..UNFORTUNATELY, however, the teacher’s don’t usually know the law! Even right now, there is an ESL teacher in this building who tells the kids “NO SPANISH ALLOWED”. That’s actually illegal and an infringement on their civil right! I guess it’s a good thing for these teachers that the immigrant parents don’t know the law well enough to prosecute them!
Thanks again for this! I printed the transcript and have been playing it orally for my students while we follow along with the transcript. So far, even my ELL students understand most of it!
=)
March 17th, 2009 at 7:27 am
By every measure, ELLs are the lowest performing and fastest growing student population in our state. Research for decades has shown the value of using native languages in educating ELLs and recent reports showing quality programs in MA have shown the success of programs still doing just that. We need to strengthen the bilingual programs in MA that exist and support the development and return of many more.
Kara
March 17th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Everyone here seems to be ignoring the fact that the previous system of Transitional Bilingual Education which had been in place for over 20 years was a total educational failure in teaching students how to function in English.
The report printed above was completely unbalanced, as one can see from the fact that there was only one paragraph dedicated to any form of rebuttal of the story’s obvious bias that students are ill-served by English immersion. This premise is incorrect, students are doing far better under SEI than they ever did under TBE.
The story states that students are dropped into English classes in a “sink or swim” approach. This is nonsense. For one thing, students are not ONLY immersed in English languange classes- they are also provided with several hours per week of English language development classes to support their acquisition of English. Also, students in 10th grade who have been in English immersion for less than 3 years can take MCAS in either English OR in Spanish. ALL Students who have been identified as limited English proficient- EVER- are allowed a Spanish-English dictionary on MCAS for their entire academic life. ALL schools are required to shelter English languange content for Enlgish languange learners. The recommended staff training to be considered “qualified” is almost 100 hours! C’mon folks, this is hardly an oppressive system. But it IS a system that understands the critical importance of understanding and being proficient in English in order to have top quality opportunities open for one’s future.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
As with any publicly funded service, the freedom to voice informed or un-informed opinions is inevitable. People even have the right to vote on policy decisions they have no basis in fully understanding such as the Unz initiative.
The issues around second language acquisition of non-majority students in the U.S. require guidance from highly skilled practitioners expert in the linguistic, and socio-psychological processes associated with myriad culturally, and linguistically diverse student circumstances.
A common premise is that everyone went to school therefore everyone is an expert and can speak with authority on what is best for students. The fact is that the Unz initiative was a clever political tactic to generate a popular vote on a largely misunderstood and generally misrepresented area of public education.
The public has not been invited to vote on policy regarding the treatment of minimum security prisoners in public facilities, or on the dissemination of per pupil expenditures for Talented and Gifted students in the wealthiest cities and towns of the Commonwealth.
The public was however, asked to decide whether Limited English Proficient students should be taught in English, which was only a fraction of the deceptiveness of the bill.
Pedagogical matters affecting the lives and future of hundreds of thousands of young people in our public schools should be strongly mandated and regulated by the State’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, assertively, and definitively. Until the DESE and the wisdom from the institutions of higher education in this State commit to representing what we know to be effective instruction for ELLs zealously, excellence in education for every child is highly unlikely.
If you ask me whether there is a collective ounce of concern among the State and Federal policymakers about the success of ELLs in this country, …. my answer would be, “Do pigs fly?”
March 17th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Marie-Jose Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I am an immigrant too - but not the ones targeted by these “english only” laws- I came here as bilingual highly paid tech worker but while my daughter is an A+ English student in an exam school I insisted for her to BE bilingual and almost sadly could afford private schooling in elementary school. What I found unacceptable from Ms Porter and others on today’s report is this denial of the beauty of speaking another language besides English ( I speak 3 and understand 2 others). I would love to have Ms. Porter get a job where I come from: Quebec with a law on education in French only for foreigners. Would Ms. Porter be as dogmatic if she needed a job and would she defend why HER children should be taught in English and not in French while in Quebec? I also do not understand why having bilingual teachers is a sin - even of they do teach in English they could relate to their students. For me today’s report was really showing mostly ostracism not enlightenment and in fact perpetuating a cycle of dropouts. Kudos to the student who said she wanted to learn “everything” not just the English stuff. The rest was totally discouraging.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
With regard to the above comment from Marie-Jose: listen to the story again! Everyone in the story, save for Ms. Porter, is saying exactly what you are saying, that students should have access to native language instruction. The Chelsea teacher, the UMASS professor, the Framingham administrator are all supporters of bilingual education who must work within a system that is dictated by Question 2.
As the radio report says (and contrary to the statements of Yogi above), there has been no systematic study about the effects of this law. If it is working, show some data, if not, then let schools design programs that are right for their students, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Right now, older newcomer students are often not allowed to register in school or are kept perpetually in 9th grade (probably until they drop out) so that they won’t affect a school’s MCAS scores. THAT Is leaving children behind. So, just saying that more ELL students pass MCAS now than did before Question 2 would be useless data unless it is accompanied by data about how many ELLs drop out before they even take the MCAS.
March 17th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
From what I know, I don’t think that punishing for speaking Spanish is really an official policy at Chelsea High School (but the students’ perception is not to be disregarded…).
But, it makes me think of a poem by Matin Espada
The New Bathoom Policy at English High School
The boys chatter Spanish
in the bathroom
while the principal
listens from his stall
The only word he recognizes
is his own name
and this constipates him
So he decides
to ban Spanish
in the bathrooms
Now he can relax
March 27th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I have taught in Chelsea for 14 years and personally know the two students above. They are both intelligent young men with an interest in improving their English and succeeding academically. However, after they arrived, they had a little over a year to learn all the English they could before taking the 10th grade MCAS in English and Math (which is NOT offered in Spanish). As with all students (including English-only kids) they have 5 chances to pass before graduation, or they don’t graduate. The questions in the math MCAS are presented in English, so it’s not just about how much math you know. I encourage people to look at sample questions at the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website. Could you pass the test? After one year in a new country with a totally new language? Watch out, the residents of your new country will consider you as lazy and coddled if you receive any help in English, your mother tongue.
Valid and recent research shows that 5 to 7 years are needed before a student can do quality academic work in English. In Massachusetts, we typically give students 1 year, maybe 2 if they haven’t made sufficient progress after 1. Could you move to Thailand and within a year take biology, or chemistry, Algebra, Geometry, world history, Thai literature and, of course, your new homeland’s history IN THAI after ONE year? When you’ve never learned anything about these subjects ever before? Please show me how so I can help my students do it!
There is no mandate in the Chelsea Public Schools nor in any other district that I know of that prohibits the use of a student’s first language to help them understand. Each teacher decides in the rules of his or her classroom. Because I speak Spanish and some French, I can occasionally help students who speak them briefly in class or extensively after school. However I can’t help my Vietnamese or Creole or Serbo-Croatian speakers. Most other teachers are not multilingual, so this isn’t an option at all, so the students muddle through the best they can. Both teachers of these students and the students themselves are being asked to move mountains, but we don’t have enough time.
Teachers across the U.S. need mandatory training in concepts of second language acquisition to gain an appreciation for what these students go through, and develop the skills it takes to teach them well. Coincidentally, these instructional skills are applicable to English speakers in mainstream classes as well, so the training helps ALL teachers with ALL students. Wouldn’t you want that kind of teacher to instruct you in Thailand, your new country?
March 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Dear members of the NPR community:
I was wrong. Grade 10 MCAS math IS offered in Spanish. However, most of the ELL high schoolers taking algebra and geometry don’t benefit from the Spanish version because they have been learning the material using English-language terms since they arrived here and were never exposed to the material in their first language. It’s almost pointless to offer them a math-content exam in a language that’s more alien to them than English.
Zoe Morosini, Chelsea High School
April 1st, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I have been a licensed ELL teacher for ten years. I believe that the most important change to support successful learning for ELL students would be for the DESE to enforce the regulations so that ELLs at the beginner, early intermediate, and intermediate levels receive ESL and content instruction from licensed ELL teachers until their transition to mainstream English classes across the curriculum, is complete. This may take 2 years, 5 years, or more; however much time is necessary for each individual student to become fluent at grade level in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English. There are no shortcuts to learning to learn in a new language.
In practice, many systems use instructional assistants, or new graduates and laid off teachers with any license, as ELL tutors and/or teachers.
Additionally, ELLs are illegally placed in English age/grade mainstream classrooms upon arrival, in schools across the state. Many receive no actual ESL instruction from anyone.
Also- offering the Math MCAS in Spanish can only be successful if the student has learned the same math content in Spanish before immigrating, or has been in a bilingual classroom here. The student must have been taught in the language of the test.
Our treatment of PK-12 immigrant children is a tragedy for the children and their families, who come to America with the same hopes and dreams that brought most of us to this once shining place.