Plans for bilingual education

Under a district proposal, pupils with limited English could be taught in magnet schools.

RIVERSIDE—School officials last night unveiled a master plan for bilingual education that would establish magnet schools where pupils with limited English – and the district’s bilingual teachers – could be concentrated.

The Riverside Unified School District board took its first look at the plan, meant to improve the instruction, programs and activities available to the district’s 4,802 pupils with limited English.

The plan will be brought back to the board for discussion and action later this year.

At that time, the board is expected to tackle the logistics of its growing bilingual program, including the delicate issue of creating bilingual magnet schools without segregating the Hispanic pupils who make up 87 percent of the district’s limited-English population.

Phillip Perez, deputy superintendent of instructional services, said it is too early to say which elementary schools would be considered for the magnet program, how they would be chosen or when the program would begin.

Magnet schools most likely would be in neighborhoods with a high number of pupils with limited English. “We are not interested in uprooting people,” Perez said.

It is a potentially explosive political issue. In 1992, the district was investigated by the state Department of Education after parent activist Michelle Sheehe complained that assigning some limited-English pupils to specific year-round school schedules amounted to segregation.

The state concluded that despite the district’s arguments that clustering bilingual students allowed it to concentrate services, the district was obligated to provide equal educations for all bilingual pupils, regardless of where they attend class. At that time, 42 percent of the district’s limited-English pupils were assigned to schedules where bilingual programs were not available.

Alfredo Schifini, professor of education at California State University, Los Angeles, helped Riverside Unified create its proposed master plan. A longtime official with the Los Angeles County Unified School District, Schifini said there are “many, many” bilingual magnet schools in California, and that it is possible to concentrate limited-English pupils without segregating them.

The board praised the master plan as a sign of the district’s continuing commitment to bilingual education, which teaches pupils in their native language until they are ready to transfer to mainstream classes.

“Altogether, I think we have made a superb start,” said board member Maxine Frost.

It is a considerable commitment, said Schifini. It takes some students at least three to five years to become fluent in English, and most about seven years.

The proposed master plan calls on the district to do more for its pupils in transition and to identify their special needs, whether they are qualified for gifted classes or special education.

The state’s bilingual education law expired in 1987, leaving school districts to follow guidelines set by the state Department of Education. These guidelines are based generally on the state’s interpretation of legal rulings and a federal law requiring schools to provide pupils who do not speak English with an equal education.

Gov. Wilson last year vetoed a measure that would have created a statewide bilingual education plan, a measure he said would have been too costly.

About 1.7 million California pupils speak little or no English, and the debate on how to educate students who,collectively, speak more than 100 languages has raged for years.

Critics charge that bilingual education is a waste of money that delays a pupils progress in learning English.

Supporters say the program eases pupils into an English-speaking world, allowing them to study in their native language.

Most pupils enter bilingual programs between kindergarten and third grade, according to the state Department of Education, but a substantial number enter the program during middle school or high school.

The demand for instruction far outpaces the number of qualified bilingual teachers, and districts with fast-growing limited-English populations must compete for the few credentialed bilingual teachers available.

Perez said Riverside Unified has 58 certificated bilingual teachers and 49 language development specials – two-thirds of the bilingual teachers it needs.

The master plan includes a call for the district to encourage – and possibly support financially – instructional aides and college students interested in becoming certificated bilingual teachers in return for a commitment to teach in Riverside.



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