Thousands of bilingual education students don’t learn English because many of their teachers aren’t qualified to teach it, a report released yesterday by Mayor Giuliani found.
“Too many teachers of bilingual education are not themselves bilingual – they lack sufficient proficiency in English,” said the report by the mayor’s task force on bilingual ed.
“That’s a euphemism for ?They don’t know English,'” Mayor Giuliani said.
The task force – whose members included Schools Chancellor Harold Levy, who endorsed the report’s recommendations – said beefing up recruitment of bilingual ed teachers is a top priority.
Giuliani said bilingual teachers should be paid on a scale based on how quickly their students learn English. The teachers union, currently without a contract, opposes merit pay.
“We’ll see,” Levy said when asked if he was willing to pay hard-to-recruit bilingual teachers higher salaries to woo them to city schools.
Giuliani and Levy agreed yesterday on other major proposals to overhaul the Board of Education’s much criticized bilingual education programs, including:
* Creation of a new “accelerated” and “intensive” English language instruction program to get students to learn English within a year.
* Giving parents the power to decide whether their children should be enrolled in traditional bilingual classes – where they are mostly taught in their native language – or English immersion programs.
* Abolish mass waivers that permit students to remain in bilingual programs for more than the state-required three years, and change the testing criteria that steers students into bilingual courses, but makes it harder for them to get out.
Bilingual advocacy groups such as Aspira and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense were skeptical of the mayor’s report, and said they will have to study whether any of the proposals violates a court order governing bilingual education.
But Aspira released a statement agreeing that steps should be taken to ensure that “only fully bilingual certified teachers” are teaching in bilingual ed classes.
A full 27 percent of bilingual-ed teachers are uncertified to teach, the task force found. That means they couldn’t pass state teaching license exams, or had yet to take them.
Giuliani said immigration is “the source of our city’s strength.” But he emphasized that learning English as “soon as possible” was vital to assimilation and success.
Levy – who endorsed the report – will propose that the Board of Education adopt some of the recommendations, and will offer others at a board meeting today.
“We want children to learn English. On that, there’s no disagreement,” the chancellor said. “I am confident the board will see fit to make appropriate changes.”
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