Sunday, July 27, 2008

Judge says Texas High schools must teach in Spanish

A federal judge on Friday gave the state of Texas until the end of January to come up with a plan to improve education programs for secondary school students with limited proficiency in English, criticizing the state education agency for "failing to ensure equal education opportunities in all schools." U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice said the Texas Education Agency is violating the civil rights of Spanish-speaking students under the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act. Furthermore, the state's monitoring of programs for students with limited English-language skills is "fatally flawed" because of unqualified monitors, undercounting of students with limited English proficiency and arbitrary standards, Justice said.

The 1981 Bilingual and Special Education Programs Act, a measure passed by the Texas Legislature 27 years ago that staved off court action addressing discrimination in Texas schools, has not improved the schooling of secondary students with limited English proficiency, Justice ruled.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, an organization that helped litigate the case on behalf of other advocacy groups, said primarily Spanish-speaking students in Texas have higher dropout rates, lower graduation rates and lower achievement rates than their English-speaking counterparts. "The clear failure of secondary LEP students unquestionably demonstrates that, despite its efforts, TEA has not met its obligation to remedy the language deficiencies of Texas students," Justice wrote. "After a quarter century of sputtering implementation, defendants have failed to achieve results that demonstrate they are overcoming language barriers for secondary LEP students. Failed implementation cannot prolong the existence of a failed program in perpetuity."

The ruling gave the TEA until Jan. 31, 2009 to come up with plans to improve secondary school programs for students with limited English proficiency and the monitoring of those programs. Those plans must be implemented by the 2009-2010 school year. Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe declined to comment Friday night, saying she hadn't seen the ruling.

In a statement, MALDEF hailed the ruling as the "most comprehensive legal decision concerning the civil rights of English language learners in the last 25 years." Justice's ruling affects "every single high school in Texas," Luis Figueroa, a MALDEF attorney, told The Associated Press. "Every school district is going to have to realize the TEA is going to be looking at their accountability of English language learners." Justice did say in the ruling that the problems in secondary schools are not seen in the state's elementary school programs.

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Huge failure-rate of black males in Indianapolis Public Schools

19% graduated in 2005-06, report finds. The main fix being tried? Keep the dropouts in some sort of school no matter what

Superintendent Eugene White pledged to make IPS the nation's best urban school system by 2010, and a new study shows just how far behind the district was when he made that promise three years ago. The study, based on the 2005-06 school year, pegged the graduation rate for black males in Indianapolis Public Schools at 19 percent -- the lowest among 63 urban districts in the study. The rate for white males was also 19 percent, which was better than only Detroit. "This continues to emphasize what I've been trying to emphasize: the urgency of turning this district around as fast as possible," said White, who took the helm of the district in 2005. "I think we have the things in place now to do that."

IPS has introduced dropout prevention programs, sought to ease the transition into high school and avoided handing students permanent expulsions. The rates reflect IPS' concentration of poverty, a key predictor for dropping out. The rankings, compiled by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, include urban districts elsewhere that encompass much larger areas and include more wealthy students. Only about a quarter of public schoolchildren in Indianapolis attend IPS. And the district -- by big-city standards -- is not especially large, with 35,000 students, and shrinking. It is shrinking, in part, because parents increasingly are sending their children to charter schools. Others move from the district or, in affluent neighborhoods, send children to schools outside the district.

All of those factors can play a role in concentrating impoverished students in the district, children more likely to have parents with less education and without the means or flexible work schedules to be more involved in schools.

White cautioned that the statistical estimates in the report aren't as accurate as the method Indiana began using two years ago, which tracks individual students. He added that not all districts report graduation numbers the same way. A district spokeswoman said the 2005-06 graduation rates calculated by the district are nearly the same as those in the report. She said graduation rates appear to have increased in the past two years, but numbers were not immediately available. School Board President Mary E. Busch said it would surprise her if the district was the worst in the nation but said the 2005-06 school year was before the district's push to connect with students and require alternative schools rather than expulsions. "We're working hard to bring the graduation rates up," she said. "We have special initiatives and strategies in place to truly address the situation. We're not pleased with where we are."

White's administration has placed great stock in the new initiatives. Last year, he launched 21 alternative schools, some of which helped bring dropouts back into school while others provided classes for students who otherwise would be suspended or expelled. This school year, all students two or more grades behind in elementary and middle school will be assigned to a special program with intensive math and reading instruction and a network of support staff.

Arlington High School and Marshall Middle School have been converted to "community high schools" and are designed to prevent students from dropping out when they can't make the transition to high school. An initiative launched by the Chamber of Commerce in June will pair mentors from the business community with hundreds of IPS students. Those initiatives are a start, but the community lacks the leadership at its highest levels needed to resolve the problem, said Mark A. Russell, director of education at the Indianapolis Urban League. "There is not a person in the state Department of Education charged specifically with addressing the achievement gap between blacks and whites. Does the IPS board have a committee on it?" he asked. "If we're wanting to save these children, where is the effort?"

At Marshall Community High School, the only IPS high school in session Friday, students said it didn't surprise them to learn IPS was at the bottom of the list nationally. Adrian Taylor, a black freshman, said he knows many people who have dropped out of school. He puts much blame on teachers who don't seem to care. "I think it's the students' fault, but most of it has to do with the teachers," he said, adding that he won't drop out and aspires to attend Harvard University.

Another freshman, Dominique Wright, put more of the blame on his peers. "We need to step up our game," he said. The Rev. Reginald B. Fletcher, pastor at Living Word Baptist Church and a high school teacher, said the programs White has put in place have started the community down that path. But the issues are too deep for a school district alone to combat, he said. Absentee parents and teenage pregnancies continue the cycle of low educational achievement and poor parental guidance. That, he said, feeds violence on the scale such as the city has seen this month. "It just creates a cesspool in terms of a lack of hope and an apathy that sets in," Fletcher said. "We have to really rally together as a community where we come together and not live in our isolated homes." [Good luck with that!]

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