By Sarah Jane Tribble
Knight Ridder
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
It doesn't matter whether California students who don't know English are taught in bilingual classrooms or fully immersed in the language, according to a five-year study of California's Proposition 227. What matters is the quality of the education they receive.
``We don't see any compelling evidence that one is better than the other,'' said study co-director Amy Merickel with the American Institutes for Research. ``We've been arguing about the wrong thing for a long time. . . . It doesn't appear that forcing the majority of students to take the immersion pill is going to be a solution.''
Seven years after California's controversial Proposition 227 passed and reduced the use of bilingual programs throughout the state, the 228-page study largely sidestepped the political debate surrounding English learners. Instead it recommended that educators put less emphasis on dictating specific methods and more on rewarding academic success.
As a result, the long-awaited study that was mandated by state legislators in 2000 and released Tuesday frustrated both camps in the political battleground of improving English proficiency.
Maria Quezada, executive director of the California Association for Bilingual Education, said immersion has had a ``troublesome effect'' on students and their families. She pointed to low test scores, high dropout rates and widening achievement gaps as signs of Proposition 227's failure.
``The frustration that I feel for the students is that we can't make up that time that has been wasted on a program that we knew back then didn't have any research in it,'' Quezada said.
After seeing the study's release, Ron Unz called the study's outcome ``foolish.'' Unz, former chairman of an organization that supported the proposition's campaign, argues that English-learner test scores have improved because of immersion programs.
Proposition 227, passed in June 1998 with 61 percent voter approval, requires that all
English learners be taught primarily in that language and shifted to regular classes within a year. The mandate included a parental-waiver provision that has enabled some schools to continue teaching students in two languages.
Robert Linquanti, a project director and co-author of the study, said that Proposition 227 did successfully shine a spotlight on English proficiency needs.
California has about 1.6 million English learners, according to the state Department of Education.
Among the state's English learners, Spanish accounts for 85.1 percent of the population; Vietnamese is a distant second, representing 2.2 percent.
The study, which reviewed the outcomes of all state standardized tests over five years, said factors that contributed to a school's success included staff training, a schoolwide focus on language development and ongoing monitoring of students.
``There is no silver bullet,'' said Linquanti, who works for the national non-profit research agency WestEd. ``This is a systemic issue and requires a real systemwide approach.''