Boston: English immersion, educational exclusion

[Harold Schiffman]

English immersion, educational exclusion


How long does it take to make a child give up on school? Since the
2003 academic year, Boston has pushed public school students with
limited English ability—who speak everything from Cantonese to Haitian
Creole—into “Sheltered English Immersion” programs. The initiative,
the result of a 2002 referendum, was emphasized English as the
language of instruction, in contrast to traditional bilingual
education that teaches students in their native language. About five
years on, an analysis by the Mauricio Gaston Institute at U-Mass
Boston gives the new programs poor marks:

The study found that high school drop-out rates among students in
programs for English Learners almost doubled and that the proportion
of English Learners in middle school who dropped out more than tripled
in those three years. Finally, although there have been some gains for
English Learners in both [English and math test] pass rates in 4th and
8th grade, gains for English Learners have not matched those of other
groups and as a result gaps between English Learners and other [Boston
Public Schools] populations have widened.

>>From an individual standpoint, in the years following the policy
shift, an immigrant youth's education in Boston might have looked
something like this: When you arrived in the United States, you were
placed in a class where you studied English alongside other subjects
taught in your native language. Months later, you found yourself
tongue-tied as you struggled with basic assignments, all in English,
with minimal help from your teachers. Your parents, who had even more
trouble with the language, knew little about your teachers or your
school work. In 10th grade, you, like the majority of kids in your
program, flunked the standardized English and math tests. Today, your
teacher says you have to repeat your grade in order to graduate. And
you're wondering whether it would be wiser to just stop coming to
class, as many of your English learner peers did.

The education of immigrant youth has always posed obstacles for
teachers, policymakers and students themselves, and the expansion of
high-stakes testing under No Child Left Behind has further narrowed
options for designing real solutions. So far, the shoddy report card
of Boston's English immersion scheme doesn't answer the question of
which pedagogical approach is best. It simply underscores that
although immigrant children are at least as diverse in needs and
abilities as any other group, schools keep trying, and failing, to fit
them into one box.

http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/04/english_immersion_educational.html

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