New Leader for Bilingual Ed Review
The Board of Education yesterday appointed a Bronx schools superintendent to transform the system's long-standing bilingual education program, giving parents more of a choice in the type of instruction their children receive. Dr. Edna Vega, currently the superintendent of Community School District 7, will head the new citywide Office of English Language Learners. The new office will replace the current Office of Bilingual Education, Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy said in a statement released yesterday evening. Vega's appointment will become effective on March 27. "I have directed Dr. Vega to start to work immediately . . . on development implementation plans for" the new language policy adopted unanimously by the seven-member Board of Education on Tuesday night, Levy said. For years, some Latino parents had complained that their children were assigned to bilingual classes simply because they had Hispanic surnames. Often, critics of bilingual education asserted, children would remain in bilingual classes for years, even if they didn't need the specialized instruction. The new policy gives the board more flexibility, retaining bilingual education for those who need and want it while expanding English-intensive instruction for foreign language students whose parents choose it. Vega has worked in education for 26 years and is an adjunct faculty member at Teachers College at Columbia University, the Board of Education said in a statement announcing her appointment. As it dealt yesterday with the controversial issue of bilingual education, the board also coped with a challenge to its plan to have a for-profit company take over five troubled schools in the city. The board announced that State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Dowd has scheduled a hearing in Brooklyn for tomorrow on a suit filed by a coalition of community groups. The activist groups, lead by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, are seeking to postpone a scheduled mid-March vote by parents on whether or not to turn five schools-three in Brooklyn and one each in Harlem and the Bronx-over to Edison Schools Inc., a for-profit company. The petitioners have alleged that the board granted unfair advantages to Edison in the company's effort to win votes of parents. Edison, for example, has been allowed to set up offices in each of the five schools and has been given access to addresses and other information about parents. For Edison to run any of the schools, more than half of the parents at the school must vote for the takeover plan. Dowd yesterday denied ACORN's request for similar access to addresses and phone numbers of parents. |