(posted Monday, August 27, 2007)

New CEEP special report outlines issues, recommendations.

Despite well-intentioned efforts and a recent influx of funding from the General Assembly, more resources and different tactics are needed to address the huge growth in the number of Latino limited-English-proficiency students in the state. That’s the conclusion of a special report from the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University. “Latino Language Minority Students in Indiana: Trends, Conditions, and Challenges” concludes that schools and communities tend to segregate and marginalize Latino students and other English language learners. While many schools may devote most resources and time to technical mastery of English, the report states more should be focused on better training for staff and broader literacy development for students.

Indiana has one of the fastest-growing populations of English language learners (ELLs). According to the U.S. Department of Education, ELL enrollment in the state grew 408 percent between the school years of 1994-95 and 2005-06, third-fastest among all states. ELL students have struggled to meet expectations. Ninth grade ELL students averaged a 67 percent passing rate, 10th grade ELL students a 66 percent passing rate on the English/Language Arts portion of the 2006 ISTEP+ assessment exam.

A report co-author summed up part of the problem by noting her experience working with some Indiana schools as a school psychologist to evaluate ELL students. Rebecca Martinez, assistant professor of counseling and educational psychology in the Indiana University School of Education said school administrators and teachers always asked if the student was developmentally disabled. “And every single time it’s been a matter not of evaluating or ruling out cognitive impairment, but of educating the staff.

The number of state-certified English as second language (ESL) teachers is barely half the recommended student to teacher ratio recommended by the Indiana Division of Professional Standards. More trained staff could mean students aren’t relegated to the areas where the few bi-lingual teachers work, such as the special education class. Gerardo Lopez, an associate professor of education leadership and policy studies whose research on migrant education is cited in the report, said the lack of staff leads to those students only being exposed to a small part of the school. “Latino students, or any other students, really don’t get to interact with any other teacher, or any other group of educational experts beyond those who have the linguistic capacities to work with them,” Lopez said.

Lauren Harvey, Assistant Director of Language Minority and Migrant Programs in the Indiana Department of Education and also a report co-author, agreed that schools must have more trained personnel. “It’s really important that school corporations have qualified staff and they have teachers not only with a few in-services or workshops under their belt, but that they actually have staff that has the certification or endorsement in the ESL area,” Harvey said. “And right now, that is kind of limited in availability as far as the number of institutes of higher education that offer the certification and the number of teachers that actually complete it.”

The IU School of Education began the Tandem Certification of Indiana Teachers (TACIT) program five years ago to address the licensing issue. TACIT is a federally-funded five-semester course leading to Indiana certification as a teacher of English as a Second Language. The program teams with Indiana school corporations that have significant populations of ESL students. The U.S. Department of Education just granted the school of education on the IUPUI campus nearly $1.5 million to prepare ESL teachers. The school of education at IU-Southeast in New Albany just received the university’s largest-ever grant, $1 million from the U.S. Department of Education, to license more ESL teachers in Floyd County, Clark County, and Seymour, and will be teaming with IUB in the effort.

These efforts are consistent with the report’s recommendation that state and local governments as well as local school corporations should form stronger partnerships with university-based resources throughout the state. The authors also suggest Hoosiers should view newcomers as more of a resource for learning, rather than viewing them as a “problem,” and expand efforts to build cultural competency. Some ideas proposed include more study abroad programs and dual immersion Spanish-English schools, or programs within individual schools, which could help students and community members understand the cultures newcomers come from.

“You have the myth that students just need to learn English and they’ll be okay and you can just learn English by being immersed in the context,” co-author Peter Cowan, assistant professor of language education, said. “And it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

The full report may be viewed at http://ceep.indiana.edu/projects/PDF/Latino_Language_Minority_Students_Indiana.pdf. CEEP promotes and supports rigorous program evaluation and policy research primarily, but not exclusively, for education, human services and non-profit organizations. Its research uses both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. To learn more about CEEP, go to http://ceep.indiana.edu.

Media Outlets: the following comments are available as mp3 files on the IU School of Education Website at http://education.indiana.edu/news/tabid/5663/Default.aspx. Look for the story headline under “Podcasts.”

Martinez speaks about her experience working as a counselor with some Indiana school districts in evaluating Latino newcomers: “And every single time the question has been ‘is the student mentally retarded?’ And every single time it’s been a matter not of evaluating or ruling out cognitive impairment, but of educating the staff—the whole issue of English, the second language acquisition process. So there’s a big misconception about if you don’t speak English that there’s obviously something wrong. And that’s not the case.”

Martinez speaks to why communicating with newcomers and their families is so important for school personnel: “Maybe you’ve got a child who’s lived on the Texas-Mexico border and been in school there for years and now they’re in Indiana. That’s a very different story than the child who was formally trained through fourth grade in Mexico City. But if you don’t ask questions, you don’t know. One of the problems with that is that you’ve got a lot of parents who are illegal, and they’re scared to death. They don’t want anything to happen. And so communication is often difficult because of the fear parents have about having to go back, or being found out. And so I think all schools need someone who’s proficient, bi-lingual, who’s able to bridge that gap between the school and the family so that there’s a level of trust for the betterment of the child. Otherwise, it’s difficult, it’s really, really difficult.”

Cowan describes why cultural competency is important: “It’s really just saying you don’t need to know everything about everybody, but we just need to be human and try to understand how other people feel and be curious about them and how they might be different and what we can learn from them. And then incorporate those things into how we teach them, how we bridge from what they know and do to what we need to be teaching them in school.”

Cowan says the need for literacy training and specialized personnel is vital: “You have the myth that students just need to learn English and they’ll be okay. And you can just learn English by being immersed in the context, and that’s fine. And it’s a lot more complicated than that. You have the myth that education is relatively straightforward and easy and teachers don’t need any particular kind of special training, as long as they know their content knowledge, as long as they love kids, they’re going to find out, they’re going to find a way and everything will work out. Well, no, that’s not necessarily true, either.”

Harvey says the state is concerned about better assessment of limited English proficiency students: “Only for the first year of enrollment in U.S. schools is there any kind of flexibility where students can be exempted from the English language arts portion of the test. They still have to take the math part. So after the first year, they are expected to take the regular ISTEP assessment in all areas, with some accommodations that are approved on an individual basis. Indiana is one of several states that are working with the U.S. Department of Education on a collaborative called the ‘LEP Partnership’ to develop better means of standardized assessment for limited English proficient students and to identify appropriate instructional and assessment accommodations on those types of assessments.”

Harvey describes the need for ESL-trained teachers and staff: “That’s critical. It’s really important that school corporations have qualified staff and they have teachers not only with a few in-services or workshops under their belt, but that they actually have staff that have the certification or endorsement in the ESL area. And right now, that is kind of limited in availability as far as the number of institutes of higher education that offer the certification and the number of teachers that actually complete it, and further the number that actually stay in the state and utilize that certification.”

Lopez says the report is intended to be a call for a bigger overall effort: “What we’re trying to do with this report is, we’re really trying to encourage and promote policy-makers to really begin to recognize that the growth of this population in the Latino community will specifically require resources, will require much more of a strategy, a concerted effort, if you will, to address the multiple needs and the multiple challenges we face as educators.”

For More Information, Contact:

Chuck Carney
Director of Communications and Media Relations
Office: (812) 856-8027
ccarney@indiana.edu