'Horrendous' language problem

Panel says needs of growing number of immigrants acute

AUSTIN – Tens of thousands of newly arrived immigrant schoolchildren file into public classrooms each year, most of them unable to speak English and many of them refugees who have not attended school regularly, if at all, in years.

With a 26 percent increase nationally in the number of immigrant students over the past decade, one of the biggest challenges facing public schools is how best to teach this growing segment of children, educators say.

The problem is most acute in border states like Texas, which saw a 37 percent increase in immigrant schoolchildren from 1980 to 1990, according to the Education Commission of the States, a coalition of education officials from around the country.

“”We’ve been so insular that we’ve always assumed everyone would speak our language,” said Preston C.Kronkosky, president of the privately run Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, a nonprofit corporation in Austin. “”I think every American ought to be bilingual, if not trilingual. ”

Kronkosky is one of three experts who will address teachers, administrators and other education experts from around the country on the issue of “”Educating New Americans” as part of the Education Commission of the States’ four-day annual meeting, which begins today in San Antonio.

The problems of educating immigrant children are myriad, say experts like Maria Medina Seidner, director of bilingual education for the Texas Education Agency, and Judith Walker deFelix, professor of bilingual education at the University of Houston.

It’s not that non-English-speaking students just have to learn a new language, Seidner and deFelix said. They also are struggling to learn to multiply fractions, plot graphs and solve algebraic equations – mathematics principles that kids frequently stumble over when they learn them in their native language.

The poverty conditions in which many live, cultural differences to which newly arrived residents are trying to adjust and homes where little or no English is spoken compound the situation, the experts said.

“”It’s horrendous,” Seidner said of the problems immigrant schoolchildren face. “”The older they are when they come into our schools, the harder it is to meet our (high school graduation) requirements. Many of the kids coming into high school in border towns have had no more than three or four years of education. ”

DeFelix said newly arrived U.S. schoolchildren need sufficient time learning in their native languages before they are pushed into English-only classes. She said the better private and public schools recognize this fact.

“”You could learn calculus in Swahili,” she said.

State bilingual education requirements stipulate that non-English speaking students be taught academic subjects, like math and reading, in their native language during the elementary school years. But the requirements apply only to school districts with at least 20 non-English-speaking students at the same grade level, Seidner said.

In Texas, at least a third of the state’s 1,055 school districts offer bilingual programs, she added.

At the middle- and high-school levels, bilingual education is not offered; instead, English is taught as a second language.

Compounding the problem, experts say, is that courses geared toward immigrants compete with other educational programs for funding.

Plus, they say, those students face additional handicaps. At the Spring Branch School District, for example, refugees from Thailand are entering high school with no prior school experience.

“”It’s not just the language they’re lacking,” deFelix said.

“”It’s also the experiences. ”

Among the more innovative programs nationally, she said, is San Francisco’s Newcomers High School, where academic instruction is given in eight foreign languages.

Other schools are trying diagnostic campuses, to which new non-English-speaking students are temporarily assigned. In such settings, in-depth assessments of the students’ academic levels and capabilities are conducted. Educational plans then are tailored to individual students when they are assigned to their home schools.

Seidner said TEA’s role is to provide direction and ideas for local school districts to apply in trying to improve immigrant students’ performance.

DeFelix added that many school districts are recognizing the value of working with immigrant communities and using parents to help. Japanese immigrant communities, she said, often run schools on weekends to give their children additional academic experiences in their native language.

Likewise, she said, the growing Mandarin community in the Houston area is seeing to it that Chinese children are getting additional help from adult immigrants.

“”The most successful schools are those that are two-way bilingual,” deFelix said. In such schools, for example, English-speaking students who want to learn Mandarin would be paired with immigrant Chinese students for whom Mandarin is their native tongue.

DeFelix also recommends that teachers who have non-English-speaking students in their classes tap into resources of community centers in ethnic neighborhoods to recruit volunteers for the schools. At school campuses with foreign language parent-teacher groups, she said, school officials have found that immigrant parents become much more involved in their children’s schooling.

Kronkosky, however, takes a longer term view of what he thinks schools should be emphasizing, including trying to change stereotypical images of all immigrant children as uneducated or coming from substandard schools in their native countries.

And while he says he is “”fanatic” about the need for all schoolchildren to speak English fluently, Kron-kosky also believes English-speaking students’ education would be richer if they learn additional languages.

Ideally, he said, all U.S. schoolchildren would be required to take at least one, if not two, foreign languages, beginning in the early elementary grades.

“”Research is very clear,” he said. “”Those from 18 months (old) to 5 years pick up a second language faster than a worm for a fishing pole. ”

New kids in school

Ten states with the greatest percentage in school-age immigrant children from 1980-90:

Nevada – 64.9%.

Florida – 57.0

California – 53.3

Arizona – 45.7

Texas – 36.8

Georgia – 32.3

Washington – 28.1

Wisconsin – 25.9

Virginia – 22.4

Idaho – 21.9



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