Assembly Panel OKs Bilingual-Ed Overhaul

Change could end waivers of the law

TRENTON—An Assembly committee Tuesday approved an overhaul of the state system for teaching immigrant children who do not understand English and are consequently at risk of falling behind.

The change in rules could lead to a crackdown on smaller school districts that have received special waivers to avoid existing state law on bilingual education.

But the proposals would also give more flexibility to larger districts with full-time programs in other languages so they can structure programs more efficiently. For example, districts could establish one school as a second-language “magnet” for all immigrant children in the city.

Governor Whitman’s education commissioner, Leo Klagholz, testified in favor of the proposal Tuesday. This was a rare step, because the initiative was promoted by Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Garcia of Union City.

The bill passed the Assembly Education Committee 4-0 with bipartisan sponsorship from Garcia and Assemblyman John A. Rocco, R-Camden County, the committee chairman and deputy speaker of the Republican-controlled Assembly.

“These programs can all be instituted without any hardship to the school boards,” Garcia said. “It still provides the students the opportunity to continue to learn while they learn English.”

The Assembly bill marks a significant departure from a bill passed by the Senate on Feb. 9. That bill would leave intact existing programs in 241 districts that have received waivers from a state law on bilingual education.

Garcia said the Senate proposal allows too many districts off the hook while doing nothing for children who cannot understand their teachers and cannot read a newspaper.

The full Assembly is now likely to act on the Garcia-Rocco bill and send that version to the Senate in place of its own bill.

Some form of bilingual reform must be signed into law during March or school districts will be unable to compile their budget proposals for the 1995-96 school year. Preliminary budgets are due March 8. State laws have mandated for years that school districts provide special teaching for immigrant children if those districts have 20 children or more who speak the same non-English language.

Some 78 districts have full-time programs, but the 241 others have received annual waivers from the law. Attorney General Deborah T. Poritz said in September the waivers might be acceptable policy but do not comply with the law.

The Senate bill simply changes statutes to permit the waiver system to continue, but Garcia persuaded his Assembly Republican colleagues to use this opportunity for a more substantive change.

“If we just go with those waivers, they don’t work,” Garcia said. He said many students are put into English-language classes and left to fend for themselves with varying success rates.

Garcia’s bill would require the 241 waiver districts to establish two-year, part-time programs. Options include offering second-language classes part of the day, and “sheltered” English programs, in which foreign-language teachers guide students as they attend mainstream classes in other subjects.

In most cases, these districts have some form of program in place now, Garcia said. Education Department spokesman Peter Peretzman had no details on how many of the districts would need to expand their programs.

Klagholz started off 90 minutes of testimony by noting that the proposal erases the notion that second-language teaching should go on for more than three years, as is sometimes the case now.

“It makes clear it is a transitional program,” Klagholz said. “It will improve and accelerate the transition to English.”

Raul Barriera, who supervises immigrant education programs for the Essex County vocational schools, said, “Putting them in sink-or-swim programs, as I went through when I came to this country, is not the answer.”



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