California Said Yes to Bilingual Education. Now What?

Eddie Caballero, principal of Sherman
Elementary, a bilingual immersion program in Sherman Heights, accomplished
something never before tried in San Diego Unified. He created a successful bilingual immersion school that
educates native English and Spanish speakers alike.

Bilingual immersion schools have existed in
the district since the ’70s. But prior to 2008, when Sherman opened, they
catered to affluent and middle-class English-speaking students whose parents
wanted them to pick up another language.

Last year, 84 percent of Sherman students
reclassified by the time they left fifth grade, which means they demonstrated
fluency in English. Sherman students also bested district and state test score
averages, upending old assumptions about what English-learning students are
capable of academically.

So it surprised me, when I met with Caballero
in August, that he had mixed feelings about Proposition 58, a statewide ballot
measure passed by voters in November that makes it easier for schools to mount
bilingual programs.

It wasn’t that Caballero doesn’t support
bilingual programs. Eight years of rising test scores and improved enrollment
at Sherman demonstrates his commitment.

What concerned Caballero about Prop. 58 was
that he knows growing a strong program takes time and patience. He worried that
making it easier to open bilingual schools would entice school districts and
principals to rush to open bilingual schools without laying the foundation for
a successful program.

When he worked to open Sherman, he said he
faced district officials who didn’t think the model could work in a low-income
community. He recruited bilingual teachers who wanted to be part of a team that
created a curriculum together. He worked to inform parents on the benefits of a
bilingual education, and get them to sign waivers, documenting that they agreed
to the bilingual approach.

It wasn’t an overnight success. The first year
it opened, Sherman’s test scores were the lowest in the district. But Caballero
had informed parents ahead of time that this is common with dual-immersion
programs – student test scores lag in the early grades, but pick up steam by
fifth grade. At that point, students in bilingual programs tend to catch up and often surpass their peers in
English-only programs.

Yet, in spite of all the challenges, Caballero
and his staff were able to create a program that works for Sherman’s students
and parents.

Now that Prop. 58 has passed, school districts
and principals across the state are trying to figure out whether to grow
bilingual programs – and if so, how.

Experts share Caballero’s concern. I talked to
three of them: Patricia Gándara, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at
UCLA; Cristina Alfaro, chair for the Department of Dual Language and English
Learner Education at SDSU; and Olympia Kyriakidis, who oversees and supports
language programs across the county at the San Diego County Office of
Education. Here are some things they say need to happen next.

Before districts can pinpoint how many
bilingual teachers they need, they must figure out how many exist.

Growing strong bilingual programs requires
strong bilingual teachers. But right now, most school districts in California
have no idea how supply stacks up to demand.

“On a statewide basis, we literally have no
idea how many of these teachers we have and how many we need, because we
haven’t been tracking it. We don’t have data for which teachers have bilingual
credentials, or how many may want to step into that role. So I think we badly
need a census in this state. That should be our first priority,” said Gándara.

Alfaro, who prepares bilingual teachers at
SDSU, said Prop. 227, an English-only mandate passed in 1998, decimated the
state’s ranks of bilingual teachers.

“There was virtually no incentive for teachers
to pursue bilingual credentials,” said Alfaro. “Why would you prepare for a job
that doesn’t exist?”

In fact, Alfaro said in the years that
followed the Prop. 227, numbers dropped so low SDSU almost closed her program.

But she was able to keep it afloat, and the
number of teachers seeking bilingual credentials slowly ticked up. For the past
few years, her program has prepared 50 to 60 bilingual teachers a year. Yet,
the numbers have plateaued, even while the demand has picked up.

Alfaro agrees with Gándara: School districts
need a teacher count. Alfaro is creating a survey along with Chula Vista school
district, which she said has always been forward-thinking when it comes to
bilingual education. Twenty out of Chula Vista’s 45 schools are bilingual – the
highest concentration in the county.

She’s hoping the survey Chula Vista sends out
can be used as a model for other school districts.

Once districts have a better idea of how many
teachers already have a bilingual teaching credential, they’ll have a better
idea of how supply compares to demand.

Find teachers; grow a pipeline.

Alfaro teaches a graduate class at SDSU that
includes many current San Diego teachers. One day she took an informal survey
in her class of 30 to see how many teachers already had a bilingual teaching
credential but were teaching in English-only programs. She was shocked when
half the class raised their hands.

Part of the reason for this, said Alfaro, is
that there hasn’t been much incentive for teachers to get a bilingual
credential. In fact, some teachers felt it worked against them.

“These teachers have never really been treated
with respect or as though they had special expertise, but rather: You’re the
bilingual person, you do the translating, you do all this extra work. So
there’s some baggage here, I guess you could say,” Alfaro said.

Incentivizing teachers to seek bilingual
credentials – either through financial compensation, or other means – may be in
a step in the right direction.

To create a sustainable pool of teachers,
Alfaro said, school districts need to grow their own pipelines by recruiting
high school graduates or community college students.

The best candidates, she said, are students
who graduate from high school with a Seal of Biliteracy, a statewide distinction
for students who’ve shown they can read, write and speak in multiple languages.
Not only have those students demonstrated mastery of another language, they
know the context of California communities – a trait that would be lacking if
school districts look outside the state or country to recruit bilingual
teachers.

Roughly 125,000 students have graduated with
the seal since the state started offering it in 2012. There’s no good reason
school districts shouldn’t turn to recent graduates, said Gándara.

Know your community before you choose your
model.

Before Kyriakidis moved over to the San Diego
County office of Education, where she oversees dual-language programs across
the county, she was founding principal of a trilingual school in Lakeside Union.

When she was working to open that school, she
thought first of a two-way immersion program, like Sherman Elementary’s, where
native English speakers learn from native Spanish speakers, and vice-versa.

But two-way immersion programs require a
balance of native Spanish and English speakers, and she worried she might not
have the numbers to support it. Compared with, say, San Diego Unified or Chula
Vista school districts, Lakeside had a lower percentage of English-learners and
a higher percentage of white and affluent parents.

But when Kyriakidis engaged parents, she
learned a good number of them did want their kids to learn
multiple languages. And not just Spanish, but Mandarin too. The result was a
trilingual school, where children can communicate with 75 percent of the
world’s population by the time they leave fifth grade.

In order to know which model will work, school
districts have to understand what parents are looking for, and what will work
for the community’s population, said Kyriakidis. The trilingual school may not
have worked in Sherman Heights. Opening a two-way immersion school was difficult
in Lakeside.

Alfaro said it’s not uncommon for her to get
calls from enthusiastic principals who want to open a dual immersion program
just like another school down the street, which is working well. But it doesn’t
work like that.

“It’s very good for principals to look at
model programs, but they can’t think they can simply transplant those programs
to their community,” said Alfaro.

Alfaro urges principals to commit to a year of
planning before they move forward. In that first year, they should assemble a
bilingual literacy team, including teachers, parents, school leaders and an
expert who understands the research behind bilingual education.

Educate parents.

Research shows bilingual education can be an
effective approach for English-learners. One notable study shows
that English-learners educated in bilingual programs outperform their peers
taught in English-only programs.

Still, a stigma remains, particularly with
some Latino families, that bilingual education will hurt their children’s
ability to learn English. The only way to dispel that notion, said Alfaro, is
by educating parents.

“I think there are parents that still think
that – maybe because they had negative experiences with a bilingual program –
that they’re not very effective. However, when you go to upper middle-class
communities, they totally get it. They go, ‘This is good stuff. This is really
good for our kids.’ They understand it from a global perspective, they
understand it from a 21st century skill perspective,” said Alfaro.

The trick is getting multilingual parents to
understand that bilingual education is an asset, not a limitation.

“This is really powerful with our Latino
parents,” Alfaro said. “When I tell them these programs are very popular in
higher economic areas, they think: ‘Wait a minute, what am I missing?’ Then
they get excited. They realize it would also be good for their culture and
their language. They realize it’s a strength. We need to do a better job
putting those things at the forefront and delivering the message in a way that
makes sense to parents.”

Go slow.

No question, parent demand for bilingual
education is there. Every year, well-established dual immersion schools in San
Diego Unified get more applications than they have seats. More programs are
opening in San Diego County every year.

School districts, like San Diego Unified,
seizing on the opportunity to attract parents, are promoting their growing
number of programs.

But this comes with a cautionary note, a point
made by all three experts: School districts need to go slow, move methodically
and do it right. If school districts move too quickly, they’re more likely to
open programs that just don’t work.

“There are some schools right now, and I know
because I’ve done an audit, that claim to have a dual-language program, and it
really is not. It’s like a pseudo program. Either make it a true dual-immersion
program, or don’t do it. Because then you give a bad name to bilingual
education when it’s not done right,” said Alfaro.

Alfaro said she’s particularly concerned
whether the principals appointed to run bilingual programs will have enough
expertise to align their programs with what research says works best. But that
responsibility will fall on individual school districts.

“Unless there is some mechanism in the
district to monitor the principals who are going to be running these programs,
they’ll be doing whatever they want, unless someone is inspecting what they’re
doing. And that’s the danger. And we see that a lot, unfortunately.”

Alfaro points to Sherman Elementary, which
took years of work, planning and adjustments to get to the program it has
today.

“That’s the way it should be done,” said
Alfaro. “If we hurry into this and we don’t plan and just kind of move with the
momentum, then I don’t think we’re going to get the results that our children
deserve.”