Rules on bilingual teaching are eased

EDUCATION: The state will let districts decide how to instruct non-English-speaking students.

School districts will be able to use different methods of teaching students who speak English as a second language and not be forced to use bilingual instruction under a plan approved Friday by the state Board of Education.

The new policy, the first change in state bilingual-instruction rules since 1987, gives power to local school districts but holds them accountable for improving the performance of non-English-speaking students in all subjects.

Districts where students get low test scores or fail to become fluent in English could lose their share of more than $ 300 million in state funding for bilingual programs, state education officials said.

“They have to let us have local control to decide what to do _ results over methodology,” said Gloria Matta Tuchman, a first-grade teacher at Taft Elementary in Santa Ana and a long-time foe of bilingual education.

Current state code requires that students beginning to learn English be taught in their native language to help them learn math, social studies, science and other subjects. Parents, officials and activists have bridled at the rules, disputing the effectiveness of teaching children in two languages.

A quarter of Orange County’s 400,000 students require special instruction because English is not their first language. The new policy would have the most effect on districts such as Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Westminster where there are large populations of Hispanics and Vietnamese.

Audrey Brown, spokeswoman for the Westminster School District, said the new rules should ease state pressure on her district, which was ordered to hire more bilingual teachers last year.

“I think it’s something we’ve been shooting for all along,” she said. “We want a lot of programs because we have lots of types of kids. The more flexibility the better. ” Westminster has only two bilingual classrooms for about 60 of the district’s 3,600 limited-English students. Other non-English-speaking students currently study in English-only classes or learn with help from bilingual teacher aides.

Advocates of bilingual education are grateful that in a time of anti-immigrant furor, the new policy does not prevent districts from teaching in languages other than English.

“I really thought the state board was going to go radical on us wipe out bilingual ed altogether,” said David Sanchez, a bilingual teacher in Santa Maria and member of the California Teachers Association board.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin hailed the new policy as a compromise that allows for experimentation while protecting the right of districts to continue running bilingual classes.

“We are making an important and conscious commitment to our limited-English-speaking students _ that they will not be deprived of access to the core curriculum while they are learning English,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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