The long predicted Fall campaign by the Urbana School District 116 to sell the decision they made, to merge all Dual Language classes in one school (codeword: “whole school model”) started. The crew of administrators responsible for the program (Directors Ricconi and Wiemelt) are working the parents, as usual, by triangulation.
There are several intrinsic tensions at play: one is between the lofty primary goal of the DL program – to give better education to the kids of immigrants, – and the gentrified version of it, – DL as a free enrichment program. There is also the split between the parents of English speakers with kids in ML (monolingual) and DL programs: some of these families will inevitably lose their neighborhood school under the administration’s plan.
The administration also relies on the isolation of the immigrant families, who are being told, on the background (by the various liasions), that for them, the DL is the only way to go.
But above all, the administration counts on its ability to guilt-force the Board into acceptance of whichever they propose. They believe the message “Yeah, someone will have to suffer, but this is necessary to advance the fortunes of the English Learners,” will seal the deal.
This message, however, is simply not true.
First, let us state the obvious: yes, the schools with large population of kids without working knowledge of English have to help them (to transition them from English Learners to English Speakers, in school bureaucratese). This is, thankfully, the law, and the USD116 has to make sure that English Learners learn, you know, English.
However, the law nowhere states that this should be done by an immersion programs. The old good ESL is a good, old tool that worked in the past and is working now, for many immigrant kids in Urbana (and elsewhere). A lot of families in our district still ask for it, and are doing just fine.
Perhaps, the DL programs are working much, much better for English Learners? Somewhere, – maybe. But here? as we wrote earlier, the numbers we were able to obtain about the situation in the USD116 simply do not support (well, do contradict) that.
To resolve this contradiction, the district at some point tacitly moved the goal. Now the talking point (readily seconded by some Board members) is that the DL program aims to create a safe environment for the English Learners, helping them to preserve their culture. The important part, they repeat over and over, is that the kids still are able to talk to their folks back home in the language of their parents.
Retaining their cultural, ethnic and linguistic identities is a hugely important challenge for all immigrants (I confirm that as one). Schools should cherish and support that. But it cannot be the goal of the programs designed to help immigrant kids to be successful in this society. And it was not how the immersion idea was sold to the district! Here’s the Board President, Paul Poulosky describing the goals of the DL program proposed by Dr. Wiemelt:
The multicultural director for the district, Joe Wiemelt, is very data driven in his methodology, and I am sure will do what it takes to make the DLL program a success. The first priority needs to be the educational attainment of the children who are a part of the program. Period. <…> I would trust the experts and the research to get this right.
excerpt from a 2012 email by Paul Poulosky.
(Isn’t it amazing to see Dr. Wiemelt characterized as data driven? Something has happened over these long years, – and no, I do not believe that’s the impact of the “Critical Bilingual Leadership theory” Dr. Wiemelt claims to develop in his 2014 thesis. Plain institutional corruption and intellectual dishonesty are much more plausible.)
The picture is pretty clear. The district started an experiment, whose success on its primary metric, educational attainment, they are unable to confirm after a decade of trying. The growth of the attendant bureaucratic apparatus meanwhile multiplied the costs of the program and the incentives to keep it. Now these costs are about to spill over to nonparticipating, monolingual kids and their parents and, by extension, to all of us, making Urbana a much less desirable place to live for young families. To justify that pain, the district is attempting to substitute the original goal by a much fuzzier one, in hope to transplant the battle to the garbage pits of culture wars.
What we, the citizens of Urbana, can and must do in this situation is also quite clear.
First, we should request the evaluation of the DL program on the terms it was started: on how it educates our kids, – first, English Learners, but also the participating English Speakers. If the district is unwilling to produce the data, the default assumption should be that the program failed its original mission. Any new goals, like cultural support, should be deemed a backdated rationale for feeding the ever-growing body of district bureaucrats. If the District does believe in the virtues of its DL program for educational advancement of the children, it should immediately initiate a broad data gathering and analysis effort, to create an unambiguous picture of what it is achieving and at what cost. The district should not attempt any radical reorganization before such a study is done.
There is no pressing imperative to reorganize the DL program. If its expansion is constrained by the DL teacher shortage, the expansion should stop, and the classes should be kept at the levels the district can support in the existing setup.
The district could serve its growing population of English Learners by ramping up the well established ESL program, which can be handled by the monolingual teachers (the immigrant kids are immersed into the usual classes, but get a measure of extra support, sometimes substituting the English classes, sometimes on top of them).
There are a couple of standard objections to this approach. One is that these teachers would have to be ESL certified, – true, but this is a far lower threshold to entry than to be fluent in Spanish. Another one deals with the requirement that the immigrant kids should be provided lessons in their native language, culture and history. Also true, but would require far fewer Spanish-fluent teachers per student than the two-way immersion model.
Given all these considerations, we would expect a rational Board to squarely reject the administration’s request to combine the DL programs at Leal and Dr. Williams schools as premature at best.
The Board however, is known for its extremely deferential attitude towards the administration. We cannot expect it to be rational.
As the Board’s decision on the merger is scheduled for December, well before a new Board is elected, the natural solution is to put the question of merging the DL programs in the district on the ballot. The results of the vote on April 4, 2023 would give plenty of time to stop the process of merger, if the voters reject it.
By my estimates, one would need about 1,300 signatures collected by December to ensure the question will be placed on the ballot. And we can expand its scope, by asking not only whether all elementary schools in the districts should retain monolingual classes, but putting forward other proposals. (E.g. why not to request that all elementary schools in the district provide Spanish language classes?)
This way, – by voting, – one can break the spell the administration of the district seems to have over the Board. We still live in a democracy, right?
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What data do you have that shows how traditional ESL programs have better outcomes for students than dual language programs?
I do not have *the data* (the district is, clearly, hiding it from us), but anecdotally (and, by Dr. Wiemelt’s criteria of success, that is the most valuable evidence), say, King ELs are doing just fine.
Again, I can start a thread on the meta-analysis of the literature (just to pull a random paper, this report shows that two-way immersion is worse than, say the one way immersion), but the specifics of the implementation and local condition should outweigh everything, and ten years of the implementation of the DL program did not give the district any convincing argument why DL is better.
A bit unfair to ask for the evidence when the administration hides it, right?
As a teacher in the district, I am hearing the reasons for the proposed shift to be primarily due to retaining DL bilingual teachers, and to allow those teachers better time to collaborate- the thought being if they are all in one building, it will be easier.
However- the DL teachers I have spoke with have indicated that while that is nice, it won’t fix the systemic issues. These are that K-5 teachers get 2 collaboration times a week when the students are in Fine Arts/PE. This is a 30 minute time slot. Teachers must walk their class to Fine Arts/PE, drop them off, and then return to a classroom to collaborate in this meeting with the other staff at that grade level. Then, after about 15-20 minutes have passed, the teachers all have to leave to go pick their classes up. Due to the very short time actually available to meet- the meetings are very ineffective.
The only other times teachers have to plan for the 6+ subjects every day is during their 30 minute prep time daily (which has the same time restraints of realistically being 20 minutes- and most teachers use this time to email parents and use the restroom).
The second thing the district struggles with is DL staff retention. Some of our DL staff are working under a provisional license (have a bachelors degree and are bilingual- but may not have completed a teacher licensure program- or need to get a teaching license in this country or state). These staff are not only working full time in the classroom, but are also taking nearly full time college coursework to get the required certification or degree. It is extremely stressful for them to do both. Especially for those who have never had any training in teaching prior to starting.
Another issue is the lack of appropriate and complete materials to use to teach the students. Many DL teachers have to find materials in English, and translate them to use in the classroom. They spend hours translating curricula as well as writing every parent communication in both languages. DL teachers also have to administer more standardized testing than monolingual classrooms. These are time intensive.
Lastly the district is saying that this change would improve the overcrowding class sizes in the DL program (and sometimes in the monolingual program as well). Currently there are 2 issues happening that most people aren’t aware of. One is that class sizes are determined by the teaching contract. An example is: Kindergarten cap is 22 students (one teacher, no aide). In April, kindergarten students register early for school. Many families do not end up pre registering, and additional students register in July, and up to (and after) the first day of school. The Bilingual administration tends to fill the DL kindergarten classrooms to capacity (22 students) in APRIL. Then when more native Spanish speakers register in July and August, the classes get filled well over capacity to 24 or 25 students. At this point, an aide is required, and they are extremely difficult to find Spanish speaking TA’s. Out of these 22 Kindergarten students placed in that room back in April- about 12 are “Native Spanish” speakers. This is the second issue.(That is in quotes because there are always kids listed as a native speaker who have little to no Spanish language skills, or they speak another Central American language. If the parent writes Spanish is the primary language of the home, they are automatically put on the DL class as a Spanish speaker even if the child has minimal or sometimes even no Spanish). If the district did 2 things, it would improve the high numbers of students in classrooms. One is to not accept immersion English speakers to the program until after centralized registration in the end of July or early August, and see how many spots are actually available. Putting 8-10 English speakers in, in April, then having overcrowded classes in August when more native speakers register is completely preventable. The DL program model would still be valid with 4-7 non-Spanish speakers. There is no reason to fill the classrooms that early. The second thing would be to evaluate the child’s Spanish knowledge prior to class placements to determine if they are a native Spanish speaker or not. Kids who speak Q’Anobal need ESL services, not to simply be placed in DL without any language supports. Currently they are being listed as Spanish speakers, which many are not.
If the DL classes were a bit smaller, there would also be a few more Non-Spanish speakers to add to the monolingual class. Yes, sometimes that would require adding another classroom at that grade level. So instead of 3 classrooms (combined DL/monolingual) of 22-24 students, there could be 4 classrooms of 17 or 18, which is a FAR better learning environment. It doesn’t serve anyone well with large classrooms that are at, or over, capacity.
Another issue is that much of the previously presented data was not in favor of this change, primarily by families. Especially Spanish speaking families. Many parents do not want their child bussed a distance, or with less exposure to the community. I believe there will be significant enrollment drops of both monolingual families and DL families opting out of DL if this change is made. Either by not choosing the DL program or moving to private schools.
Here are my final questions:
1. How will the district address the overworked and overstressed DL teachers who spend hours translating, doing graduate coursework, etc? What is the specific plan to reduce that workload? Are they going to offer 1 day off a week for them to complete coursework? Purchase full curricular materials for all subjects for each DL teacher? DL staff are quitting because of the huge workload. Moving buildings won’t change that.
2. Is the district going to be moving the elementary planning time to that similar to UMS and UHS with an early release day once a week so staff can meet for longer than 20 minutes for collaboration planning? Eliminating breakfast in the classroom and offering supervision in the cafeteria – essentially starting the school day 20’minutes later, allowing Daily collaboration planning at the beginning of each day? Because keeping it how it is won’t solve the collaboration and planning issue. Staff are also now required to enter in all discipline referrals themselves- a job that building secretaries used to do- which adds more things to the already short planning time.
3.How DL classroom placements going to change policy-wise so that some DL classrooms actually end up with more than%50’native speakers? Because that is not always happening. Class sizes are also a HUGE issue. We need more classrooms, instead of the admin suggestion that it would save $ to combine classes in a DL building and a monolingual building so we would need less teachers.
4. The district as a whole needs redistricting, and last I heard was projected to be looked at in 2024. Why are they considering this when ALL buildings should realistically be redistricted first- or concurrently?
Dear AT, thank you for the thorough comment! It cuts to the heart of the matter: the value of a program should be assessed not by how it is titled, or by its theoretical justification, but by how it is implemented: planned, provisioned for, and executed. Right now, there are clear deficiencies in that, visible to everyone willing to see. Shared knowledge, – objective analysis using common metric and publicly available data, – is made impossible.
Thank you, “A. Teacher”, both for your detailed comment, and for all the hard work you and your colleagues do every day. What you write explains a lot about our experience in the DL program (with one of the teachers that I believe must have had a provisional license, and had clearly been thrown in at the deep end without sufficient support). I hope your voice will be heard by the district.
Interestingly, in 2018, the district claimed success in recruitment and retention of teachers in the Spanish DL program, when they argued for the expansion of the DL program (slide 27):
http://usd116.org/files/BOE/2017-18/2018-3-13/10_02DLExpansion.pdf