Assignment #1

An e-mail from Georgia

One day, you receive an e-mail from your college friend from Atlanta, who moved back there a few years ago as a high school chemistry teacher in order to be closer to her parents. She wrote the following:

Hi. Teaching has become a bit more challenging these days, though a lot of fun. I'm feeling quite comfortable now with my schedule and class preps, no longer feeling like I'm trying to tie my shoelaces while running. But I think I could use some help becuase it feels like Georgia's starting to become more and more like California. In the last few years, we've seen a huge increase in the numbers of immigrant kids, especially from Mexico, who come not speaking English. Take a look at the attached figure on Limited-English-Speaking kids! I'm part of a teacher support group, an informal gathering that gets together for drinks and dinner about once a month, and we got to talking about this problem the other day, and we figured we had a lot to learn from California (or not!). Someone the other night said that California passed a ballot initiative getting rid of bilingual education (I am actually glad they did, because kids need a clear message that without English, there's no economic opportunity for them). I think we pretty much accept the fact that these kids are here to stay, but they take up resources, and the sitaution sure makes teaching a lot more difficult for us. I'd like to do the right thing, but I'm not sure what we have to do by law, or what's the right thing to do as educators. So, you, noble and experienced Californian, enlighten us ignorant Georgians! Seriously, can you help us get started? We are going to get a study group going on this, and so if you could point us in the right direction, that would be much appreciated. Here are some questions that we jotted down as a group:

1. What are the basic federal and California state laws for English Learners?
2. Do we have to use the student's native language? Didn't you (as in you Californians) outlaw it with Proposition 227, and didn't that fix things?
3. Around Georgia, we have lots of old immigrants who say that the old way was "sink or swim", and the strong ones swam, which made America strong. Would you mind enlightening us on what's wrong with that?
4. As a science teacher, I don't feel that I have any particular responsibility for teaching these kids English - that should be the English teacher and the ESL teacher's job. Am I right to think so?
5. Really, what should schools be doing? Any pearls of wisdom from the California experience?

It would be great if you could get me some answers, even if preliminary, to these questions so that I can share them with my group the next time we meet.

Also, I'd love to just get a sense of your fix on this problem area -- is it mostly politics and rhetoric just like we have other heated and divisive issues in education -- vouchers, religion, phonics war, math war? Based on what you know about the research in this area, is there any hope that the kids will benefit from scientific research and not be part of a political football game?

Thanks!

Resources

Hakuta, K. (2001) Key Policy Milestones and Directions in the Education of English Language Learners Rockefeller Foundation. http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/khakuta/docs/rockefeller/index.html

U. S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (2006), English Language Learner Resources. http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ellresources.html

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (2003). Strategies and Resources for Mainstream Teachers of English Language Learners. http://www.nwrel.org/request/2003may/ell.pdf

California State Department of Education (2006). English Learners in California Frequently Asked Questions. http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/elfaq.doc

American Institutes for Research and WestEd (2006). Effects of the Implementation of Propostion 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: Findings from a Five-Year Evaluation. http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/227Reportb.pdf

James Crawford's Language Policy Website. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/

Peter Duignan (n.d.) Bilingual Education: A Critique. Hoover Digest. Stanford University Hoover Institution. http://www.hoover.org/publications/he/2896386.html?show=essay

Guidelines for your response:

Write it in the genre of an e-mail that is about 2 single-spaced pages.

You may work in groups.

Evaluation Criteria:

Last updated December 24, 2007 by Kenji Hakuta