Two School Districts Resist English-Linked Funding
Thomas Elias
SAN FRANCISCO - Open resistance by Northern California's two largest school districts to testing children in English when they speak little of that language has now cost them a total of $1.4 million in state funds aimed at aiding those same students. Both the San Francisco and Oakland districts refused last year to allow their limited-English speaking immigrant pupils to take standardized tests mandated for all students by a 1998 state law. If they had allowed their students to take the test, the districts would have gotten $200 to spend for English acquisition programs for each of their approximately 6,000 limited-English students. Though they didn't let many of their pupils take the test, both districts still applied for the money. "There is absolutely nothing of educational value to be gained from testing a child in a language the child doesn't understand," said Mary Hernandez, president of the San Francisco school board. California's withholding the money marks the first time school districts anywhere have suffered financial penalties for refusing to allow children to take tests in English. The districts apparently can't do much about it, however. "I would have tested them," said Oakland's newly appointed superintendent. "I'm trying to figure out why my kids should be punished because we didn't test them." San Francisco board members ordered their lawyers to review the law but have not taken any action to try to wrest the money from the state. State officials say withholding the money is not punishment. "It's not like we took the money away," said a state Department of Education spokesman. "It was just additional funds they could have received, but they did not fulfill the requirements based on state law. San Francisco is not testing these kids, so they are not able to receive any of the funds." The test-in-English law was passed under former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson as a way to rank the 8,000 schools and almost 1,000 districts in the state and to provide year-to-year comparisons on how well students are learning English. More than 900,000 of the 4.2 million California children who took the tests last year had limited English skills. "San Francisco Unified is engaged in a classic education cover-up," said Ron Unz, the Silicon Valley software entrepreneur who wrote and financed the 1998 Proposition 227, which banned most bilingual education programs in California. "They want the state's money. They claim their programs work, but they won't test kids. So no one really knows how they're doing. That's why it's extremely positive that the state is withholding the money." San Francisco officials, however, insist they will continue refusing to test children not fluent in English in that language. "The position we took as a district is morally correct," said school board member Juanita Owens, "but of course, I'm very concerned we're being penalized." Even the city's representatives in the state legislature, however, are not fully backing the district's policy. "At the same time the district is poor-mouthing the state for more money, it takes these stands that end up costing it a lot," said local Democratic Assemblywoman Carol Migden, chairwoman of the assembly's appropriations committee. Besides refusing to allow testing of their limited-English speakers, both the San Francisco and Oakland districts encouraged parents to sign waivers that allowed most of those students to stay in bilingual education classes even after passage of Proposition 227. Under new administrators appointed by allies of its new mayor, Jerry Brown, however, Oakland will not be as active this summer in sending out parental waiver forms. San Francisco remains adamant. "We don't think the state policy is educationally sound, and it is not morally right," said Mrs. Hernandez. |