By Bianca Vazquez Toness (WBUR)

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A new study say students learning English in Boston schools — nearly one-fifth of all Boston students — are at a big disadvantage under the all-English education program.

The report out of UMass Boston says, since English-only education went into effect six years ago, increasing numbers of immigrant students have dropped out or entered special-education programs.

In 2003, Massachusetts voters approved a referendum mandating all-English instruction for immigrant students. Boston residents, however, voted overwhelmingly against it.

Sociologist Miren Uriarte says there’s been little analysis of that law’s impact before the study by the Mauricio Gaston Institute at UMass Boston.

MIREN URIARTE: We did this study at the behest of community groups — immigrant communities — that were concerned about the lack of information that they were receiving from the Boston Public Schools about the situation of their children after the implementation of the changes that came with the referendum Question 2.

Before the referendum, English learners had the lowest dropout rates in the Boston Public Schools. Now they are the among the highest, going from five to 12 percent. Haitian and Vietnamese students’ dropout rates grew the most.

Uriarte says the old way of teaching immigrant students by grouping them by native language and using that language as a bridge for teaching English had it’s advantages.

URIARTE: It built a community around the child. Yes, I think that was important. At least it helped to engage kids. The outcomes were not so great. The academic outcomes were not so great.

The current program, called Sheltered English Immersion, uses simple English instruction to teach math, science and social studies. The teacher may use the native language to answer a question or clarify a point.

Standardized test scores have improved slightly using this model, but not as much as they have for the rest of students. So the achievement gap between English learners and everyone else has widened.

Besides test scores and dropout rates, the study reveals an increase in English learners entering special education, particularly programs where students are kept separate from mainstream students. In 2003, 4.9 percent of English learners were in substantially separate special-education classes. Now it’s almost 11 percent.

Boston Superintendent Carol Johnson says this is a problem.

SUPERINTENDENT CAROL JOHNSON: Teachers see a student struggling. They want to provide help. They’re not sure how to. And so sometimes students are referred to special education and sometimes those students need just extra help in acquiring English.

Johnson hopes that new district programs will give teachers more options. She plans to add more two-way bilingual programs that allow young children to study in Spanish and English simultaneously.

In February, the district began a Newcomers Academy for high-school students arriving to the district without speaking much English. And, the superintendent is overhauling the intake process for new students who don’t speak English.

Johnson hopes these measures will also help the school system comply with state and federal laws.

According to a recent state report, Boston schools are not providing any help learning English to more than 4,000 students. That’s almost half of the English-learner population. By law, if parents waive their right to the district English instruction program, the district has to provide an alternative.

JENNI LOPEZ: English-language learners have a right to a program, to appropriate services, to equal educational opportunity.

Jenni Lopez is a staff attorney with Multicultural Education Training and Advocacy, Inc. The non-profit has won lawsuits against school districts in other states that weren’t providing an adequate education to immigrant students.

LOPEZ: If you’re not offering that program, and the only choice a parent has is, ‘I’m opting out’ – I mean, there’s also a serious question as to what they’re opting out of. Are they opting out of all services for their kid or are they opting out of being bused across the city to another program?

Superintendent Johnson says the district isn’t doing enough to help immigrant parents pick the best schools and programs for their kids. She blames many of these problems on the implementation of the all-English education law.

JOHNSON: The change happened so quickly, without giving school districts probably sufficient time – at the time when it occurred – to really plan more thoughtfully.

Johnson says the district focused too much on teaching English as quickly as possible. Now the district will go back and look at the research to find better ways to teach English learners.

By Bianca Vazquez Toness (WBUR)

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Do school discipline policies force some kids to drop out?

The number of Massachusetts students suspended for 10 days or more has more than doubled in the last five years. During the 2006-2007 school year, more than 4,000 children in Massachusetts spent at least two weeks out of school on suspension. And studies show suspended kids are three times as likely to drop out as those who aren’t suspended.

It was his freshman year of high school, and Kamal Arty was excited to play lacrosse and take art classes at Cambridge Rindge and Latin. But instead, the 14-year-old spent much of the year at home.

 KAMAL ARTY: I sat at my house, I read books. I don’t really like playing video games, so I just read books.

His troubles began at a homecoming dance, where a friend was having an argument with another woman who he thought was another student. Kamal claims he tried to break it up. Turned out that woman was a teacher. She pressed assault charges the next week.

ARTY: I don’t know, I couldn’t believe it. No way that I feel I assaulted her.

Kamal’s mother, Malika Arty, asked school officials to explain what happened, and when they couldn’t, she complained.

MALIKA ARTY: That it was absurd. Like, ‘You’re saying what about my child?’

Arty says her son never got in trouble before the incident with the teacher.

ARTY: He was always very well-liked. In fact — quite a few of his teachers, his lacrosse coach, his football coach, his local barber – everybody wrote letters for him saying that they’d never, ever seen any violent nature in him whatsoever. His science teacher said he would stake his reputation as an educator. I never forgot that line.

But those letters didn’t help, and the principal suspended him indefinitely. Although Kamal eventually got back into school, his mother says the suspension made him a different kid.

ARTY: I definitely think he’s changed, I think he’s less motivated. I think that if he saw the same situation he might walk right by. And that kind of hurts me because I raised him to be the kid that stepped up into it, like ’What is going on here?’ And I think  right now he might be like,’That has nothing to do with me.’ Just because when you get slapped on the hand that hard, you kind of learn not to touch the fire. So I wonder if he doesn’t step into any fires anymore.

Under Massachusetts laws, principals have the power to remove students from schools when they assault school personnel, or if they are charged with a felony.

And school officials are increasingly exercising that power. During the 2006-2007 school year, principals across the state suspended or expelled students 64,000 times. Three hundred and sixty-five students were thrown out of school permanently.

Joanne Karger is a staff attorney for the Center for Law and Education, an organization that focuses on the right of all students to a high-quality education.

JOANNE KARGER: Although suspensions are the most common form of punishment, there’s little evidence that suspensions result in reducing problematic behavior or in actually making schools safer. And in fact when students are removed from their regular education environnment, they end up falling behind in their schoolwork and they become academically disengaged.

Cambridge Public School officials won’t comment on a specific student’s situation. But spokesman Justin Martin says the principals in his city use discretion when they discipline students.

And Cambridge has a lower rate of suspension than many other districts. But some parents are still worried the district is misusing its power.

Shanti Oppenheimer also lives in Cambridge. He got in trouble for something that happened out of school, before he even started at the city’s high school.

SHANTI OPPENHEIMER: Summer after eighth grade, it was an unarmed robbery case and assault.

Oppenheimer was with friends who took someone’s money and iPod. He was thrown out of Cambridge and sent to a special education program in Boston.

He returned to Cambridge the next year, after the case was resolved. He was happy to be back.

OPPENHEIMER: I was excited. That was the school I was supposed to be going to.

A few days into the new school year, there was a shooting and witnesses told school officials Oppenheimer was on school grounds.

OPPENHEIMER: They searched me. At the time I had a leafy green substance in my pocket and then in my backpack they found a big knife.

Oppenheimer was expelled, and later arrested.

OPPENHEIMER: I’m not saying that I didn’t mess up, I’m just saying, like, they might have thought I was going to succeed, but I feel like they all had doubts. And I guess their doubts came true when I was expelled, but I just felt like if they already expected me to fail — like that’s just kind of weird, you know.

Cambridge Public School officials wouldn’t comment on Oppenheimer’s case, but Tom Scott from the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents says principals need the power to suspend and expel students.

TOM SCOTT: We cannot afford to go backwards and take away what’s one of the few tools that many of the school’s have to maintain an environment thats going to be in the best interest of majority of the kids. It’s a fine balance between those individuals who are denied some access and the vast majority of kids who should not be subjected to some of the stuff that goes on.

But advocates say the schools use suspension to remove kids who are harder to educate — namely, special education students. And the numbers do raise questions: 67 percent of the students suspended and expelled last year were special education students, when they make up only 17 percent of the state-wide school population.

Center for Law and Education attorney Joanne Karger.

KARGER: So even though they’re entitled to receive the appropriate help and instruction to address their disability, they’re being punished for their disability.

Karger and her group do suggest alternatives, mainly something they call “restorative justice.” Under that model, when kids get in trouble they would have to enter mediation with their peers and anyone else affected by their behaviour. The group would come up with a resolution together.

Shanti Oppenheimer’s mother, Sue Brent, says no one considered why her son brought a knife to school — that maybe he was scared in a new, big school after a shooting on campus.

SUE BRENT: Kids just…they sometimes do not think through their actions, they just quickly do what feels right in the moment, without really thinking it through. If he had thought through this whole thing, he never in a million years would have done it because of all that he’s lost.

Because he can’t return to Cambridge Rindge and Latin, Oppenheimer is back at the special-education program in Boston, which he says doesn’t compare.

OPPENHEIMER: I’m not getting the same education. I get little packets that my sister could do for homework. It’s kind of ridiculous.  But I don’t feel like I’m learning that much on a day-to-day basis.

While he’s looking for another school, Oppenheimer may have no alternative. Since he was expelled, he has lost his right to an education in Massachusetts schools. He’s in the school in Boston only because federal law mandates some schooling for anyone considered a special-education student. But that, he says, won’t prepare him for college.

OPPENHEIMER: The economy’s not looking great. How am I supposed to get by without going to college?

If she could, Oppenheimer’s mom says she’d take out her checkbook and sign him up for private school.

By Emily Rooney

JAMN 94.5’s Ramiro Torres’ parents both dropped out of high school but he decided to complete his high school diploma. Alexandria King’s parents graduated from both high school and college, but she dropped out two weeks before graduation. This Greater Boston report brings together two people who decided to take different paths in life.

Studio Guest: Evan Dobelle, Westfield State College President

Produced by: Tonia Collins

By Deborah Becker (WBUR)

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A classroom at University Park Campus School. Located inside an old elementary school in Worcester's poorest neighborhood, every student has gone on to post-secondary education. (Deborah Becker/WBUR)

The high-school dropout rate in urban areas of the United States is described as a crisis. Here in Massachusetts, the dropout rate in some urban districts is more than triple the state average.

But one school defying the odds is the University Park Campus School in Worcester, an urban public high school, where virtually every student has gone on to post-secondary education. The school and its partner, Clark University, are getting attention from educators around the world.

The friendly mood inside the University Park Campus School is a stark contrast to what’s outside. In the main south area of Worcester, the city’s poorest, roughest neighborhood, University Park is located amid some gritty triple deckers inside an old former elementary school.

There is no gymnasium or sports fields or computer labs. A sign above the front door says, “The school with a promise.” And that promise for the 240 seventh through twelfth graders here is that they’ll leave ready for college.

Anthony Hodges is a freshman.

ANTHONY HODGES: When I started at this school, it was hard. Cuz they pile, pile homework on you. For me, if I went to a different school, I probably would have been a bad boy. Once you come here, they force you – they want you to go to college, you do this, that, that, and you can make it.”

But many of the students here have the challenges of students who typically don’t make it. Almost three quarters of them qualify for free lunch, 67 percent speak English as a second language, 95 percent of them do not have a parent who attended college. On average they come in two years below grade level, says administrator and teacher Ricky Hall.

RICKY HALL: As a rule, we’re getting kids coming in relatively depleted academically. Our role in grades seven and eight is very intense academic wrap around, bolstering what they need for academic success in high school. By grade nine, they’re taking a full slate of honors level courses.

Since the school opened in 1997, every student has gone on to post-secondary education, every student has passed the MCAS. Last year, the school’s dropout rate was zero. Dan St. Lewis has been teaching at University Park for nine years.

DAN ST. LEWIS: In the same way that if I had a kid in high school I wouldn’t let him drop out, we don’t allow our kids to drop out here.

Melanny Dominguez, a student at University Park, has a full scholarship to attend Union College in New York this fall. (Deborah Becker/WBUR)

Not only are they graduating, many are going on to selective colleges. Melanny Dominquez has a full scholarship to attend Union College in New York this fall. She says the students don’t want to let their teachers down.

MELANNY DOMINQUEZ: My mom dropped out because of me. I’m her only child. She’s thankful to the teachers. She comes in to talk to my guidance counselor, they’re planning on — the day I move in to college — they’re planning on going.

Mary O’Sullivan is the University Park guidance counselor. She says a big difference in this school compared with others she’s worked at is that none of the 17 staff members allow a students background or circumstances to become an excuse for not succeeding.

MARY O’SULLIVAN: It’s fun to be around people who like kids. I was in other schools where I wouldn’t go into the teachers’ room because they just complained about kids. Now they say, ‘This kid got an A. Do you believe it?’ And the kids get excited too. They beam, they’re proud, their behavior on the street is different.

Expectations of student behavior are as high as academic expectations, according to Donna Rodriquez, the school’s founding principal. She grew up in this Worcester neighborhood and says she wanted to create a school that emphasized values she felt were missing in the other schools where she worked.

DONNA RODRIQUEZ: I had seen a student murdered at the large comprehensive school. So I had an explicit code of discipline: No cursing, no street talk or that kind of language.

When creating the school, Rodriquez also stood firm on the idea that the students must be randomly selected. The University Park students are chosen by a lottery, except for current students siblings, who are automatically admitted. About 150 kids apply for the 44 new seventh grade slots open each year. The only admissions requirement is that parents attend an informational meeting and fill out a one-page application.

In the classrooms, teachers also use certain instruction methods to encourage participation among all students — the seventh- and eighth-grade curriculum is described as boot camp with intense math and language work. Students are frequently required to help teach other students; there’s an emphasis on writing and, in most of the classrooms, there are a lot of active discussions taking place and a lot of group work. The average class size is about 20 students.

These instructional methods were developed with the help of nearby Clark University, which is a partner with the school. Because of its concerns about the deteriorating neighborhood, Clark approached Worcester officials about how to improve the area and about how to stem the city’s rising school dropout rate.

Jack Foley, a spokesman for Clark, says the university does not provide any financial support to the school, but its students volunteer and tutor, it offers use of some of its facilities and if a University Park student is admitted to Clark, tuition is free.

JACK FOLEY: Most of the kids in this neighborhood think college is for rich kids. We have a vested interest as a university in seeing these kids succeed. Because their success means we’re successful in the neighborhood.

Foley is also a member of the Worcester School Committee, so he deals with the city’s other public schools, where the dropout rate is six percent. Foley says replicating University Park is not a financial concern.

FOLEY: The per-pupil allocation in that school is the same as any high school in Worcester. Some enhancement from Clark, but it really is the opportunities for these students.

About 1,000 educators from around the country have visited Worcester to see if University Park can serve as a model for how to improve urban education and how to work with a university to dispel the notion that demographics are destiny.

Want to hear more about the University Park Campus School? Listen to Deb Becker’s extended interview with Ricky Hall, the coordinator of University Park, on why his school is so successful.

By Sacha Pfeiffer (WBUR)

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In the state’s poorest households, some children grow up without books, without making trips to the library, and without family conversations that help build vocabularies. That puts many of these kids at an educational disadvantage at the beginning of life, increasing their risk of becoming high school dropouts.

Boston is trying to change that by knocking on doors at public housing projects to offer help to the poorest families in the city. The Boston Centers for Youth and Families is training low-income parents to be their children’s first teacher, and to make their homes their children’s first classroom.

This weekly play group at the Charlestown Community Center looks — and sounds — like a typical toddler get-together. There’s music and reading and toys and laughter. And, yes, also some crying.

(SOUND OF CHILD WAILING)

But ask Radaisy Santana what this group has done for her three-year-old son Adrian and her eyes light up. She says in the year or so he’s has been coming here, his temper has improved, he listens better and he’s learned a lot.

RADAISY SANTANA: He know the colors, some letters.

Santana also says while Adrian used to speak mostly only her native language, he’s quickly become bilingual.

SANTANA: Now he speaking English and Spanish.

Santana and her son wouldn’t have been here if the city’s Smart from the Start program hadn’t helped coax them to come, along with other low-income families from public housing projects in Charlestown, Mattapan and Roslindale. Some of these families were so isolated they rarely left their houses.

Santana says before she joined this play group she mostly kept Adrian at home. That didn’t give him much exposure to English or to new places and new ideas. And program director Cherie Craft says those early years offer prime learning opportunities.

CHERIE CRAFT: These families and these children are not able to make the best use of that time. Because families are worried about putting food on the table. They’re having substance issues. Kids spend a lot of time alone in the apartment, without stimulation. And these are the kids that are falling through the gaps.

Craft says many low-income parents have little time or energy to focus on their kids’ educations. And she says almost 80 percent of the families who joined Smart from the Start hadn’t known that talking to their kids could increase their language skills. So the program makes sure parents know their children are born ready to learn.

CRAFT: We have one parent who also has a 16-year-old daughter and said, ‘When she was a little baby I was just happy when she was good. I would put her in the seat and I would clean the house.’ She said, ‘Now I see my one-year-old talking sooner, she understands things. I cannot believe the changes that I’ve seen in myself as a parent.

Since Smart from the Start began last year, more than 10 percent of the families it’s reached have signed up for programs like English classes, career planning and money management. The idea is that educated parents raise educated children, so the program’s goal is universal school readiness that will help all kids become high school graduates. Laurie Sherman, who helped create Smart from the Start, wants the city’s poorest families to realize their kids can blossom without fancy schools or expensive toys.

LAURIE SHERMAN: You know what? If you sing and talk to me and read to me in any language — let’s say you don’t know English and what you have at home is a book in Chinese — that helps me learn. And that helps my brain grow. And that gets me ready for school. And then I’m going to succeed in school when I get there. And then I’m going to want to stay in school. It’s really that simple.

In Sherman’s City Hall office there’s a poster that reads, “Home is a Child’s First School.” It’s meant to encourage parents to treat their homes as classrooms by doing things like explaining measurements when they’re cooking or talking about addresses when the mail arrives. Smart from the Start also trains parents to point out shapes and colors and new words.

SHERMAN: Think about it: If you’re a kid and you get to kindergarten and you’re learning to read and write words you’ve never heard, that can be as difficult as learning a foreign language.

Smart from the Start even tries to help kids still in the womb. It does that by making sure pregnant women know where their local libraries, health centers and other community resources are so they’ll have a ready support network once their babies are born. So far, the program has helped 160 families, including almost 300 children. It costs about $700,000 a year. Five hundred thousand of that comes from the United Way and several private foundations. Again, Laurie Sherman.

SHERMAN: What we’re trying to do in Boston is invest early in kids and continue that investment through the school-age years. And then all of our kids could graduate if we do this right.

(SOUND OF CHILDREN’S PLAY GROUP)

Back at the Charlestown play group, Radaisy Santana says she is now thinking of herself as her son’s teacher, and her home as his classroom.

SANTANA: When I’m doing something in the house, I’m talking about what I do. When I cooking, when I use the washing machine, he help me — ‘Mommy, I help you!’ When I’m making pancakes, he open the eggs. He like to help me.

Smart from the Start hopes that kind of parenting will help Santana’s son — and other kids in the program — thrive in school, all the way through high school.

By Emily Rooney

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams  became a graduation requirement in 2003. The Massachusetts Department of Education says students who fail the MCAS are 11 times more likely drop out of high school. Critics of the controversial exams say the test an unfair graduation requirement. This “Greater Boston” report looks at whether the MCAS exams contribute to the dropout rate.

Studio Guests: Mitchell Chester, Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education; Louis Kruger, Northeastern University Bouve College of Heath Sciences.

Produced by Ralph Ranalli

Maggie talks about where she stands academically. She’s one of eight students posting video diaries about the highlights and challenges of high school throughout the school year for Project Dropout.

Maggie reflects on the trade-offs of being a new mom. She’s one of eight students posting video diaries about the highlights and challenges of high school throughout the school year for Project Dropout.

Maggie talks about her experience being a new mom. She’s one of eight students posting video diaries about the highlights and challenges of high school throughout the school year for Project Dropout.

Maggie takes us through her day as a new mom still in school. She’s one of eight students posting video diaries about the highlights and challenges of high school throughout the school year for Project Dropout.