Judge to state: Monitor pupils' English, or else

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Joe Gray had seen the evidence before, and he was not happy.

Once again the state Department of Education had violated a long-standing court agreement to monitor the progress of students who speak limited English — a population that makes up a quarter of the state’s public school enrollment and routinely scores lowest on standardized tests.

A significant number of on-site reviews of schools were canceled during 1998-99 without court permission. Seventeen staff members required by the agreement to do the monitoring were assigned to other duties, and money from the program was spent on non-monitoring tasks.

“Rather than the court repeat history … there needs to be a fundamental change on the part of (department officials) in carrying out all their responsibilities,” Gray wrote in his April 26 ruling, threatening to name a special master to ensure the department complies.

Immigrant advocates say the repeated flouting of the agreement is symptomatic of a larger problem: a lack of sensitivity by the department, the Governor’s Office and the state Board of Education to the needs of the state’s 1.5 million English learners.

“The department isn’t doing its job, and the governor and his appointees on the Board of Education have signaled it’s not something they care very much about,” said Maria Quezada, director of the California Association for Bilingual Education.

Aides to Gov. Gray Davis say the blame for the court violations lies with Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, whose relationship with Davis has been strained. On the advice of attorneys, Eastin declined interview requests.

Meanwhile, the issue festers.

“There are growing concerns on the part of the families of English-language learners that the education system may not be responding to their needs,” said Monica Lozano, a Davis appointee to the state Board of Education who resigned in April, citing “personal and professional reasons.”

Eighty percent of English learners are Latinos, mostly the children of poor immigrants whose parents have little clout. Latinos account for more than 42 percent of the children in public schools, but with Lozano’s resignation, no Latinos sit on the 11-member Board of Education, which has a powerful policy-setting role.

Proposition 227, the 1998 voter-approved initiative, sharply curtailed bilingual education in California, but it did not end the state’s responsibility to monitor students’ progress.

State law requires districts to provide them with appropriate materials and inform parents they can seek waivers to have their kids taught most subjects in their native language.

The Department of Education has the responsibility to ensure schools are complying with the law. But Quezada said many of California’s 1,000 school districts are ignoring it.

Department statistics support her claim. Officials conducted on-site reviews at nearly 500 districts during the last three years, and nearly half were not in compliance. Quezada maintains the passage of Proposition 227 has emboldened many districts to disregard their responsibilities.

In his decision, Gray cited the department for a dozen violations and said that based on the evidence, he could issue the same ruling the court handed down in 1995 when it cited the department for similar transgressions.

The case stems from a suit filed 22 years ago by Latino parents who charged the department was not enforcing laws governing the teaching of English learners.

The suit led to a consent decree between the parties in 1985. It requires the state to closely monitor the delivery of services to English learners by districts through on-site reviews every four years — a timetable the plaintiffs agreed to reduce to three years after the department violated the agreement in 1995.

Davis’ education secretary, Kerry Mazzoni, and the board’s executive director, John Mockler, said Eastin’s mismanagement of the court deal should not reflect on the administration.

“One of the problems has been the board wasn’t getting the kind of information it needed until these issues were near crisis,” Mazzoni said. “When the board requested the information, it was told that it would be forthcoming.”

Eastin’s department is also under federal investigation for losing track of more than $11 million in grants to community groups to provide training for non-English-speaking adults.

In a statement, Eastin said: “My record of strong support for all students, in particular English learners, stands for itself.”

Department officials said she plans to carry out the Superior Court’s mandate and has developed a plan to ensure the problem does not recur.

They blame steep budget cuts during Gov. Pete Wilson’s last year in office for reducing their staffing and preventing them from monitoring English learners. Officials also contend that a series of reforms pushed through by Davis and the Legislature and mandates from the Board of Education have further stretched the department’s resources.

With a large portion of English learners clustered in low-performing schools, Davis and liberal legislative Democrats disagree on how to improve their academic performance.

Liberals contend the best approach is to send more money to schools that score in the lowest 20 percent on the Academic Performance Index.

The governor believes a more equitable policy would beef up spending at schools below the 50 percent mark — although he recently agreed to spend much of the money from his middle school expansion proposal on low-performing schools.

Concern about low-performing students has heightened as lawmakers have increased the number of compulsory standardized tests, including a high school exit exam in 2004.

Among ninth-grade English learners who took voluntary exit exams in March, only 30 percent passed the language section and 17 percent cleared the mathematics section, according to preliminary data released earlier this month by the department.

Davis has largely steered clear of the ethnic battles that engulfed Wilson, who angered Latinos by pushing Proposition 227.

Administration officials point out that in his first year in office, Davis pushed through legislation establishing an accountability system designed to ensure that immigrant students get the same attention as native students.

Last year, the governor’s budget provided $250 million in one-time funding for a language and literacy program for students experiencing difficulty learning English and an additional $70 million for instructional support.

But Davis disappointed many Latino groups when he struck a deal with Wilson to keep two of his appointees on the board.

Nine of 10 current members on the board are now Davis appointees, but some Latino activists say they have not noticed a philosophical difference.

“It’s upsetting when they don’t understand the effect their policies are having on these children,” said Deborah Escobedo, an attorney for the San Francisco-based Multicultural Education, Training & Advocacy. “We expected more from the governor.”

Wilson did not appoint any Latinos to the board during his eight-year tenure, and Lozano has been Davis’ only Latino pick.

Lozano, who runs La Opinion in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, said she has urged the governor to fill her position with an appointee who is familiar with the needs of English learners.

But Mazzoni, Davis’ education secretary, said it is wrong to believe that only Latinos can understand needs of English learners.

Latino groups last year opposed the nomination of board member Nancy Ichinaga — a Japanese American who backs English-language immersion.

They urged Davis to appoint Juan Arrambula, a Fresno County supervisor who is not wedded to that philosophy. But Arrambula, who holds degrees from Harvard, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, and served on the Fresno Unified School Board for nine years, said the administration passed.

“They told me I should start at a lower position, but I wasn’t interested,” said Arambula. “I was perceived as someone who was too independent. But as someone who started school without knowing a word of English, I thought I had something to offer.”

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The Bee’s Aurelio Rojas can be reached at (916) 326-5539 or [email protected].



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