New York: Steep Gains by Students From Abroad

[Harold Schiffman]

March 18, 2009
 Steep Gains by Students From Abroad
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

Days after it was criticized by lawmakers for failing to make gains
with students struggling with English, the city’s Department of
Education released a report on Tuesday showing that unprecedented
numbers of those students became proficient in English last year and
that more of them passed state tests in English and math. But despite
efforts to improve the performance of the city’s 150,000 students who
are still learning English, nearly 70 percent of them do not graduate
within four years and older students in particular lag behind their
peers on state tests.

According to the report, about 29 percent of fourth graders struggling
with English passed the state language-arts test last year, compared
with about 4 percent in 2003. Among eighth graders, 5 percent passed,
up from about 1 percent in 2003. The report was circulated on the same
day as the annual list of failing schools, which included 31 fewer New
York City schools this year, and 66 fewer across New York State. Among
the 401 city schools with poor test scores and graduation rates that
landed on the list, 36 have been marked for closing and will be phased
out over the next several years.

Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers,
praised the decline in the number of city schools on the list, but
noted that the plethora of measurements — failing-school lists, annual
state reviews and city report cards — are often contradictory and make
it difficult to identify successful schools. The report on English
language learners followed a heated debate Friday between Education
Department officials and state lawmakers at a hearing on the 2002
mayoral control law. A key point of contention was whether the city
had made adequate progress with a particularly vulnerable set of
students, including some who have not had formal schooling in years.
Citywide, English-language learners make up about 14 percent of the
student population, though 26 percent were in the English-language
program at some point.

Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration
Coalition, said there were signs of progress in the report, including
more than 13 percent of English-language learners passing proficiency
tests in 2008, compared with fewer than 4 percent in 2003. But Ms.
Hong said that older students in particular were not being given the
attention they deserved, noting that in 2007, about 1 in 10 English-
language learners graduated with a Regents diploma, the more rigorous
academic certificate that all students will soon have to earn.

“We’re sounding the alarm because I don’t think it does anybody any
good to try to gloss over this problem,” she said, adding that the
city should do more to recruit and train teachers for certification in
other languages. “Unless they fix this, it will forever be the big
shadow that looms over any legacy of mayoral control.” But Angelica M.
Infante, deputy executive director of the Education Department’s
Office of English Language Learners, said that the grim graduation
rates were not the best metric on which to judge the city’s efforts,
which have included standardizing the curriculum. She noted that these
numbers include those who arrive in the United States as older
teenagers and must master the language and the Regents tests within a
few years.

“I wonder how many of us would be able to go to another country and do
this, and be able to take physics and these other subject areas,” she
said. “It’s a lot of catch up. These kids really need more time.” She
said a better measure of the city’s efforts was the progress made by
former English-language learners, whom the report said had
outperformed other traditional subgroups of students in state tests,
graduation rates and dropout rates. Former English-language learners
have a graduation rate of 71 percent, according to the report,
compared with about 64 percent for students who enter the system
proficient in English. Then there are those 18who have been in the
program more than six years and are classified as “long-term”
participants. “The educational practices have to be a little different
for each of the different groups,” she said. “In order for them to
catch up, we need to be able to give them a program that fills in all
those gaps.”

>>From the NYTimes, 3/18/09
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-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************