Valley's ESL students showing improvements
Sylvia Oliande and Erik Nelson
English-language learners in the San Fernando Valley boosted their Stanford 9 Test scores in most subjects but continued to trail proficient English speakers, according to results to be released today. Like their peers across Los Angeles and the state, local limited-English speakers in primary grades showed the greatest improvement in math, reading and language but still remained below state and national levels. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, third-graders increased their reading scores by 6 percentile points to the 27th percentile this spring and their math results by 5 percentile points to the 34th percentile. Scores for Los Angeles Unified secondary students remained mostly flat. Sixth-graders improved their math scores by 1 percentile point to score in the 20th percentile while language scores for ninth-graders dipped 1 percentile point to the 18th percentile. The 50th percentile is considered the national average. "The good news is that results for our English learners, although lower than results for English-proficient students, increased in almost all subjects and grade levels," said Delaine Eastin, state Superintendent of Public Instruction. "As these gains show, our English-language learners are holding their own -- this is indeed a positive sign." Bilingual education proponents used the latest results to bolster their support of Proposition 227, the ballot measure that all but ended bilingual education in California in 1998. "Something tremendously beneficial happened to the immigrant students in their studies in the last two years," said Ron Unz, author of Proposition 227. Board member Caprice Young said the test results support preliminary classroom observations. "The numbers seem to reinforce what the teachers have been telling us anecdotally: The younger the kids are, the easier time they have learning English in the immersion classes. But as they get older, it gets more difficult," Young said. That was also evident in scores from the Glendale Unified School District, where limited-English-proficient third-graders boosted reading, language and math 5, 8 and 9 percentile points, respectively. On the other hand, sixth- and ninth-grade English learners averaged losses of 2 to 4 percentile points, except in ninth-grade language, which increased 1 point. "The ones that remain (in the English-learning program) year after year are the ones that we were really concerned about and really looking at interventions with," said Terry Dutton, assistant director of testing evaluation and research. "But that population is getting less and less every year." In the Burbank Unified School District, third-grade math scores leaped 15 points to the 54th percentile while language results jumped 4 points to the 47th percentile. District officials said they were pleased with the results but they realized a lot of work remains ahead of them. |