"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"
I just couldn’t be more thrilled with today’s New York Times front page story "Where education and assimilation collide" by Ginger Thompson.
In it, she delves into the sociological ramifications of the waves of new immigrants – and their children – on U.S. school systems. Most of these school districts are completely unprepared for the host of issues and needs that come with large numbers of students with many varied native languages other than English, wildly different cultural norms, and challenging home experiences.
There’s no need to re-create her well-written, balanced article here, I suggest you take a look at it when you’re done visiting me, I’m providing the link at the end of this column.
Instead I will key in on one major point she makes – the one she leads with – is it right to segregate students who don’t speak English to a self-contained, sheltered learning environment where new skills are built on past experiences and shared background knowledge?
I say no – absolutely not!
Ginger, in the fifth paragraph of her story – after having remarked the beauty of the integrated main campus of Cecil D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, Virginia – quotes a young woman from Guatemala who is segregated from the main population to one where all the students are English Language Learners. I’ll give you the flavor:
Walk with immigrant students, and the rest of Hylton feels a world apart. By design, they attend classes almost exclusively with one another. They take separate field trips. And they organize separate clubs.
"I am thankful to my teachers because the little bit of English I am able to speak, I speak because of them," Amalia Raymundo, from Guatemala, said during a break between classes. But, she added, "I feel they hold me back by isolating me."
Her best friend, Jhosselin Guevara, also from Guatemala, joined in. "Maybe the teachers are trying to protect us," she said. "There are people who do not want us here at all."
I was a "bilingual teacher" in two different Illinois school districts where the non-English-speaking students – 90% of whom happened to be native Spanish-language speakers – were shunted off to be with their own kind like Amalia and Jhosselin. It was horrible!
These students relied on each other so much they had no need to speak English, therefore they didn’t learn it. They were perpetually angry at me for insisting on speaking to them and teaching them with as much English as possible.
It wasn’t their fault – this is what the schools taught them that the normal "Bilingual classes" were supposed to be like.
That, of course didn’t hold true for the Polish-only speakers, the Chinese-only speakers, and the Russian-only speakers who numbered so few, they were simply thrust into "mainstream" classes with accommodations. Those kids subsequently thrived and picked up English at a rate I observed to be roughly three to six times faster than my students – some of whom were born in the U.S. and still didn’t have a decent command of the language.
The school district and the state thought I was insane for demanding that the Spanish language students be integrated with the rest of the school and taught in English – and guess what? I’m not a teacher anymore.
Schooling for English Language Learners must change – like 10 minutes ago! – across the country to better serve these students, and all the people who will have to live with them for generations to come.
Here are some statistics mined from the New York Times article’s on-line interactive maps, and from the National Center for Education Statistics, to give you a sense of what all this means to Illinois.
Keep in mind the U.S. Achievement gap: English Language Learners graduate from High School at a rate of 64% versus 80.1% for the "average" native English speaking student.
Illinois ranks #9 in the 51 states/Districts in terms of diversity according to latest figures, in 2006. (Top five are Nevada, Florida, California, New York, and Texas)
Following are statistics on the number of English Language Learners (ELL) in Illinois in 2006:
Cass County
% ELL 16.5%
total ELL students 391
total students 2,371
% Latino/Hispanic 23%
Kane County
% ELL 13.9%
total ELL students 16,483
total students 118,515
% Latino/Hispanic 35%
Cook County
ELL% 13.3%
total ELL students 106,756
total students 800,262
% Latino/Hispanic 31%
Lake County
% ELL 11.8%
total ELL students 16,469
total students 140,164
% Latino/Hispanic 24%
Jo Daviess County
% ELL 11.8%
total ELL students 410
total students 3,483
% Latino/Hispanic 2%
Boone County
% ELL 9.6%
total ELL students 1,005
total students 10,457
% Latino/Hispanic 28%
DuPage County
% ELL 7.5%
total ELL students 12,192
total students 162,017
% Latino/Hispanic 16%
Grundy County
% ELL 6.3%
total ELL students 740
total students 11,751
% Latino/Hispanic 10%
McHenry County
% ELL 5.3%
total ELL students 2,807
total students 53,515
% Latino/Hispanic 12%
I include the following counties because of their proximity to Chicago, but they, like the rest of Illinois’ counties, have less than 5% English Language Learners in their community schools:
Will County
% ELL 4.8%
total ELL students 5,537
total students 114,560
% Latino/Hispanic 18%
DeKalb County
% ELL 4.5%
total ELL students 743
total students 16,421
% Latino/Hispanic 11%
Kendall County
% ELL 4%
total ELL students 830
total students 20,579
% Latino/Hispanic 19%
Kankakee County
% ELL 1.1%
total ELL students 225
total students 19,656
% Latino/Hispanic 11%
Read the full text of the
New York Times story "Where education and assimilation collide" by Ginger Thompson here.Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com
Comments