Lang backgrounds of LEP students in 2000-2001

[Jeffrey Kopp]

At 12:47 PM 3/1/2004, Jim Holton wrote:
>Given the source and the disclaimer at the bottom, I am wondering if the
>13 students didn't come from bi-lingual programs at Grand Ronde in
>2000-2001.  They might be lumping bi-lingual programs in with LEP programs
>for their estimate.

Yes, that was my guess, too. It next occurred to me that not long before
the program began, there were still great-grandparents who had spoken
fluent Jargon, and I don't doubt they shared it lovingly with kids who
remain in school today. In either case (pre-program or after launch), it's
likely some of today's children were introduced to the Jargon as early as
English.

Mr. Roy also mentions the LEP categorical criteria included the "influence"
(the criteria unfortunately employed the potentially pejorative term
"impact") of previous generations' languages upon Native Americans, though
I believe any such effect on today's Native children's English-learning
capability would be socio-economic in origin rather than linguistic. (The
goals of the LNCB Act might not even require distinguishing this point.)

The source report appears a bit apologetic about its own sketchiness; the
criteria were in the process of revision at the time, so they some had
trouble getting fitting data out of the states:

"Meaningful interpretation of the available data is challenging for several
reasons." Survey of the States' Limited English Proficient Students &
Available Educational Programs and Services, p. 9.
<http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/states/reports/seareports/0001/sea0001.pdf> or
(HTML):
<http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:LQcFWWU4nvYJ:www.ncela.gwu.edu/states/reports/seareports/0001/sea0001.pdf>

This quirk may have been encouraged by one of the data-gathering
instruments, OMB No. 1885-0543. See page 4 (at 35 of the above .pdf):

>A2. Languages Spoken by Grade Level
>List ALL the non-English languages spoken by LEP students and the number
>of LEP students at each grade level who speak each of those languages.

This brought to mind the scenario of "Okay, kids.... Hey! Quiet down back
there! ....what other languages do you speak?" (I thought Emmett might
enjoy that.) It's an educational funding and planning report (and they
apparently did the best they could), not an anthropological or linguistic
study. Note one student's "language background" got listed as "Upper
Chinookan"--which could be an accurate report of heritage, but
linguistically would be a 150-year stretch. Of course, any kind of survey
stat below a couple points may offer interesting ideas for further
research, but can't be relied upon by itself.

I kidded Dave privately about "trolling [his] own list" (not wishing to
launch any pointless hoo-ha's--at least until today's email came in, which
offered me the higher ground of rebutting them). But at least it got us a
couple new posts, plus word from one specialist we hadn't heard from before
(and welcome!)

J.
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