Some experts questioning Ariz. instruction method for English

[Harold Schiffman]

Some experts questioning Ariz. instruction method

  The Associated Press Tucson, Arizona 08.04.2008

MESA. — Some education experts are expressing doubts about a new
strategy being used this school year for students who aren't
proficient in the English language. The policy, created by the state
Legislature in response to a lawsuit, will have non-English-speakers
going into specialized classrooms for four hours a day. While there,
the so-called English Language Learners will receive intensive English
training and they will stay there until they can pass the state's
language exam.

It's all part of the state's new plan to get students who don't speak
English to learn the language more quickly. State education officials
say it can be done in a year. Yet the plan is raising eyebrows among
some education experts across the country. One school district,
Sahuarita Unified, near Tucson, even rejected the plan for most of its
elementary school students, saying it worried the Office of Civil
Rights would find it discriminatory.

Patricia Gandara, an education professor and co-director of The Civil
Rights Project at UCLA said, "There is a lot of discussion around the
country that this is ripe for a lawsuit ...." Arizona State University
Professor Jeff McSwan has also voiced concerns about the program,
specifically that the models were based on flawed interpretations of
research. He also said much of the focus is on overt language
instruction, such as drilling verb tenses, instead of learning the
language in a more natural setting. "Our state is enacting educational
policy not based on consideration for what is the best, most effective
way of teaching kids," McSwan said. "Our state is enacting educational
policy based on ideological commitments to notions that are entirely
unrelated to education. They're related to immigration, and anxiety
about the predominance of other languages in our society."

State schools Superintendent Tom Horne disagrees. "I think within two
years, you'll see a dramatically higher rate of students being
classified as knowing English, this will be a tremendous benefit for
them," he said. Horne brushed aside concerns over possible civil
rights violations. "There's a court case that says it is not
segregation for a school to temporarily, for educational purposes, put
them in a different classroom. That's the only way to make them
successful. You don't make them successful by putting them in a class
where they have no idea what's going on because they can't speak
English," Horne said. The Arizona Legislature created the new
education policy in a response to a class-action lawsuit that
challenged the adequacy of funds being spent to help students who are
learning the English language.

http://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2008/08/some-experts-questioning-ariz.html

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