Texas: Bilingual Education Task Force now needed

[Harold Schiffman]

Alonzo: Bilingual Education Task Force now needed


31 July 2008
Roberto Alonzo



AUSTIN, July 31 - One of the most comprehensive legal decisions in
education history has just been issued by U.S. District Judge William
Wayne Justice.

It concerns the civil rights of English language learners (ELL), a
ruling which finds that Texas is failing to overcome language barriers
in educating an estimated 140,000 Latino students in our secondary
public schools. I think it is imperative that both the Mexican
American Legislative Caucus (MALC) and the Senate Hispanic Caucus
(SHC) join forces and get prepared for what promises to be an
interesting appeals process by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to
overturn this decision. While we must applaud Judge Justice for
reversing his own decision of over a year ago (July 2007), not
surprisingly TEA has already made it public that it will ask the
Attorney General's Office to appeal the latest Justice ruling.

As such, I think it is critically important that members of the
Legislature, particularly representatives of both the MALC and SHC, be
well-prepared, educated on the issue, and well-versed on the
statistical data to help support and keep Judge Justice's decision
intact.
As chairmen of the two major Latino caucuses in the Legislature, I
therefore appeal to you to jointly form some type of Bilingual
Education Task Force to closely monitor the development of this
important ruling and issue a report to all members when we convene for
the 81st Regular Session in January 2009.

According to the 95-page court decision, the State of Texas,
specifically TEA, has been given a deadline of January 2009 to address
the issues of ineffective monitoring and poor ESL programs for
secondary students, low test scores, high dropout rates among Latinos,
graduation rates, and other educational flaws that violate the civil
rights of ELL students. If past history is any indication, there is no
doubt that TEA will once again continue to use the same excuse as
before by saying that they are "already addressing the issue," when in
reality, we know that is not the case as the picture for ELL learners
in Texas continues to look dismal. That seems to be a typical TEA
response anytime a ruling like this is issued by a court.

However, keep in mind also that numbers and statistics do not lie.
Most of the numbers and other verifiable data cited by Judge Justice
in his court ruling come directly from TEA, and most of the
accumulative historical records clearly show that our state-approved
language programs for ELL students have not improved the performance
of secondary students with limited English skills. And that is the
bottom line - plain and simple.

If the state of Texas is to do an adequate job of closing that gap and
have a skilled, educated workforce for future generations, we must
take action now. And while Judge Justice's decision is a welcome
invitation to action now, as well as a major wake-up call for all
state and local policymakers, I am certain that the formation of a
Bilingual Education Task Force made up of members from both the MALC
and SHC is well in order right now, especially since the court's
decision deadline of January 2009 will fall immediately after the
start of the 81st Regular Session.

Roberto Alonzo is state representative for District 104, in Dallas. A
Democrat, Alonzo co-chairs the Mexican American Legislative Caucus's
task force on higher education. The above column is based upon a
letter Alonzo sent July 29, 2008, to the state Rep. Pete Gallego,
D-Alpine, chair of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, and state
Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, chair of the Texas Senate
Hispanic Caucus.

(c) Copyright of the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com,
Melinda Barrera, Publisher. All rights reserved.

http://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2008/07/alonzo-bilingual-education-task-force_31.html

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