There is no question that schools in Orange County, where many students speak some language other than English at home and in some neighborhoods a majority of students have limited proficiency in the English language, face difficult challenges.

Evidence from a recent survey suggests that Orange County schools are not meeting the challenge of leading young children to proficiency in English, although they seem to be doing better than schools in many parts of California. A couple of impertinent questions arise. Are the criteria by which schools are judged valid? Are state and federal mandates helping or hindering the process of helping children?

Briefly, in five Orange County districts, one in three limited-English students were either not in a special program or not being taught by certified bilingual teachers. Perhaps more disturbing, in 11 districts, less than 6 percent of students who spoke little English were able to move into “mainstream” classes within a year.

The raw data for such analyses is available because the state and federal governments have requirements for helping limited-English students and mandate various techniques. But state and federal guidelines too often offer a one-size-fits-all approach that not only makes it easy to demonstrate non-compliance, but can offer incentives for teachers and administrators to mollify bureaucrats rather than determine the needs of real students.

Those who issue mandates and guidelines are in danger of forgetting that each student is an individual, with individual aspirations, needs, and desires. It is certainly healthy for a society when most people have a certain level of knowledge and the intellectual skills needed to gain more knowledge and to evaluate new information. But on balance, education should be centered more around the needs of children than around the needs of society.

There are dozens of ways for young people to acquire English proficiency. Some will respond better to one method than to another. Schools should offer a range of teaching methods, and parents and children should have a range of choices, to increase the chances of finding methods that best suit their needs.

Mandates from higher levels of government and a concentration on credentialism _ how many teachers have a certain certificate that might or might not have anything to do with competence? _ are seldom helpful.



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