Lack of Books Stymies Many Bilingual Pupils

Publishers Avoid Less Common Tongues

When Irene Colyer took a job as a bilingual teacher in the Garfield schools, the textbook companies deluged her with catalogs offering books and classroom materials.

The trouble was, the offerings were designed for Spanish-speaking students. Colyer teaches Polish-speaking children and has been unable to find any bilingual materials.

“There’s never anything in Polish,”she said.

Educators like Colyer offer classes in reading, science, and math in native languages, in the hope that students won’t fall behind as they work on their English. To do so, they require books and teaching materials in those languages.

Although Spanish-speaking students usually get needed materials, students speaking less common languages such as Polish often do not.

They enter bilingual programs after tests show they can’t speak English, then they receive books that have nothing but English. In Garfield alone, 300 Polish students are in this bind.

“This is hard for me,”said 12-year-old Maggie Organowksa, relying on a classmate to translate for a reporter.”The homework is a lot of reading, and I’d like to have books in Polish and English.”

The problem is rooted in the economics of textbook publishing.

Translating English textbooks is expensive. Companies bear the cost only when they are confident they can sell enough textbooks to make it worthwhile.

Some states, such as Texas and California, select textbooks for the entire state so they have tremendous market leverage and can demand that publishers selling English language textbooks offer matching texts in other tongues, even relatively rare ones. California, for example, has gotten publishers to provide books in Cambodian and Hmong, a Laotian dialect.

New Jersey allows each district to pick its own textbooks, so it lacks that leverage. Even so, the home rule faith is so strong that many local educators do not want to adopt a California-style system.

“We wouldn’t want any part of some other district wagging our tail,”said Richard Brockel, an assistant superintendent in Fort Lee.

The district has a large Asian population that might use Asian-language texts if they existed. But Brockel, like many local educators, sees preserving local control as crucial.

“Fort Lee wants to be able to choose which texts best support our curriculum,”he said.

State officials acknowledge the lack of second-language books means some students may receive a second-rate education. But they are not planning to pick a fight with local schools over the issue.

“We are just not a state that’s been in the business of saying: Use this textbook,”said Ellen Schechter, the state’s assistant commissioner for academic programs and standards.”By sharing with local districts a list of possible textbooks, we would be interfering. That’s intrusive conduct.”

All this puts local bilingual educators in an awkward position: They have the power to choose their own textbooks, but don’t have any to choose.

“It makes it difficult to meet the needs of the kids. You’re supposed to be teaching them in their own languages,”said Celine Smith, Garfield’s bilingual education director.

Colyer’s students agree, and it’s easy to see why. Not only do they struggle with English materials in class, but when they go home, their parents, who often speak only Polish, can offer little help.

“They don’t know nothing,” Organowska said.

Given the differences in materials, state officials say they are hard-pressed to guarantee that students who speak less-common languages, such as the 2,000 who speak Polish, will get an equal education.

“There’s no question that there are real practical problems with some languages,”said Rochelle Sinai of the state’s Office of Bilingual and Equity Issues. “Obviously, if you have materials in the native language, it’s better. There’s more information accessible to the student.”

Spanish-speaking students have long had access to texts in their native language. Those books were developed at the behest of states like California and Florida when Hispanic immigrants began arriving in large numbers. And now, so many schools across the nation have Spanish-speaking students that publishers offering matching texts in English and Spanish have a huge advantage.

“We don’t make a lot of money off of the Spanish,”said Judy Elgin, managing editor at ScottForesman Publishing Co., one of the country’s largest. “But if we don’t have it, our English version is not as desirable.”

For other students speaking foreign tongues, the going is likely to remain a little tougher.

Fifth-grader Dominick Kimeva is a student in Colyer’s class.

Because he speaks English and Polish well, he often takes time from his own work to help his struggling classmates.

“There’s me and one other kid, and we have to explain everything,” he said.



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