LAWRENCE — The school district’s responsibility when it comes to bilingual education is clear to Superintendent Wilfredo T. Laboy: Students must learn English.

But School Committeeman Ralph L. Carrero and state Rep. Jose Santiago, D-Lawrence, argue that children in their earliest years have minds that absorb new languages like sponges.

Schools, they say, have a responsibility to use those potential-packed years to teach children two languages: their household or native language and English.

Now that Mr. Laboy has approved a plan — created by a district task force with the primary goal of teaching students English — Mr. Carrero says he would not be surprised if parents file a class action lawsuit against the district.

“I hope that the superintendent really takes a real hard look and is able to listen much more than react,” Mr. Carrero said.

The district’s new plan calls for:

r Young English-learners — in kindergarten through second grade — to be placed in English-immersion classes, with extra support from qualified language specialists.

r Older English-learners to be placed in transitional programs for three years or fewer, after which they will be offered English-as-a-second language support, but in mainstream classrooms.

District leadership has also proposed to set up eight “bilingual centers” in schools throughout the city to streamline bilingual services and concentrate them in specific schools.

While Mr. Carrero and Mr. Santiago agree with Mr. Laboy’s focus on English fluency, they say the plan lacks services for students who want the opportunity to simultaneously develop fluency in their native languages.

Whichever philosophy is used, experts agree improving bilingual education in Lawrence schools is particularly important to improving the system overall.

State leaders have said the current system lacks a unified bilingual program, and desperately needs one.

Low English proficiency has been cited as one reason for sagging performance among city students on standardized tests. Eighty percent of students in the system speak English as a second language, while 26 percent — the majority of whom come from Spanish-speaking households — have been labeled “limited English proficient.” The ‘language of power’

Mr. Laboy, a Latino originally from Puerto Rico, says that for over two decades, Lawrence schools have attempted to allow children to maintain their native languages with little success.

Instead of teaching students both English and their native languages, in practice, Lawrence schools have not taught students to be proficient in either, he said.

Meanwhile, the district has kept students in transitional programs for eight, nine or even 10 years.

Mr. Laboy said he is all for teaching children more than one language, but the district first needs to focus on teaching students the “language of power” in the United States: English.

“We have not been clear and purposeful about what the goals of the bilingual education should be,” he said. “My bottom line is … show me the results.”

For centuries, he argues, immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Poland and other countries have become successful because they learned English in school, he said, even while maintaining their cultural identity.

“They never stopped being Polish Americans,” he said. “They never stopped being Italian Americans.”

Parents who want their children to continue speaking their native language can teach them at home, in the church or elsewhere in the community, Mr. Laboy said. A global approach

Some of Mr. Carrero’s stance on bilingual education is derived form his own experience.

He moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 2 years old and grew up in a Spanish-speaking household. While he learned English, he never became comfortable speaking Spanish.

When Mr. Carrero was in college, people would ask why he was in conversational Spanish classes, when he was from a Spanish-speaking background.

“I’ve had to struggle with my Spanish to learn how to read, write it and speak it,” he said.

These days, he thinks he missed an opportunity because his Spanish-language skills were never developed in elementary school.

Now Mr. Carrero wants Lawrence students to have the opportunity he never had — to become equally fluent in two languages. This opportunity will give children the ability to compete on a global level, he said.

To do that, students need to be taught to use their native language correctly for part of the school day, beginning in the early grades, he said.

While he agrees students need to become fluent in English, he said settling only for English fluency in Lawrence schools would be “the easy way out.”

“Nothing great ever happens unless you put a lot of sweat and hard work into it,” he said.

Rep. Santiago said he believes the district should take a more aggressive approach to teaching students English, but he also believes students could benefit from daily lessons in their native language.

Rep. Santiago, who moved from Puerto Rico at 8 years old, said being immersed in English helped him to learn it faster. Still, he might have learned Spanish better had he been given the chance to develop his Spanish skills in school.

“I don’t think it hurts a kid’s program as long as they teach (core subjects) in English,” Rep. Santiago said. “But the problem is they’ve been teaching (only) in Spanish.” A need for change

Mr. Laboy, Mr. Carrero and Rep. Santiago agree that Lawrence’s bilingual system is not working because it was never correctly implemented.

This view is supported by an evaluation written by the Department of Education, released this month, that says the district has had a disjointed approach to teaching children who are learning English.

Programs have been “added and subtracted, emphasized and de-emphasized, supported and not supported largely according to the decisions of successive superintendents,” the report said.

“The availability of trained and qualified staff or of instructional materials, the operation of the student assignment process, and the professional development required for effective implementation of new program models were not addressed when changes were made. The patchwork of program models and classroom approaches the team found was largely attributed to these changes mandated from the top over the decade,” the evaluation read. Parents on both sides of argument

Parents have differing opinions about how the school system’s bilingual educating program should be changed.

Victor Javis, co-president of the Arlington School Parent-Teacher Organization, said he thinks the schools should focus on teaching children English, more than on teaching students to be bilingual.

“My responsibility as a father is in teaching to my daughters the language and the culture of my home country,” he said.

But Ana Javier, vice president of the Frost School Parent-Teacher Organization, said she thinks in many cases, school is the only entity capable of teaching children their native languages correctly.

“In many cases, it happens that the parents are not educated sufficiently to offer the possibility of teaching good Spanish to children,” she said. While she completed high school, “many other Hispanic parents have not had the same luck.”

Efrain Esteras, co-president of the General Donovan Parent-Teacher Organization said one reason his family moved to the United States from Puerto Rico was because so little English was taught in Puerto Rican schools.

“I have a 7-year-old girl, and I want her to learn English in the correct way. We (my wife and I) will be in charge of educating her in Spanish,” he said.

Lawrence parent Pedro Guerrero said he does not have a problem with his children learning Spanish in school, but it would have to be optional.

“In our home we will be in charge of teaching our Hispanic culture and our language,” he said.



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