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In his latest move to try to get Tucson Unified School District to halt offering ethnic studies, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction has commissioned a study looking at the test scores of students who take the ethnic studies compared with Hispanics in the state who don't.

The analysis of test scores found no significant effect of the courses on student performance on the state's academic tests. Horne put out a press release saying the Arizona Department of Education conducted the study to examine claims by the school district that students who take the ethnic studies courses, which focus on Mexican-American history and culture, perform better on state tests than students who don't.

The study compared the scores of 626 students who took the classes in Tucson last school year, compared with scores of Hispanics statewide. Eighty-five percent of students who took the ethnic studies classes were Hispanic. Fifteen percent were English-language learners. The Arizona Daily Star picked up on the study in an article published this week.

One thing I've learned about Horne over the years: If an educational issue is a concern for him, he will not give up in continuing to bring public attention to it.

I'm thinking about how he took the ELL funding issue in his state to the U.S. Supreme Court and how he sent his staff to the Mexican-U.S. border to gather video evidence that operators of a charter school were enrolling and transporting students who reside in Mexico across the border to attend school in the United States.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:15 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

The southeastern Asian nation of Malaysia is moving to have all of its math and science courses taught in the country's native language of Malay, rather than English.

Malaysia has changed its policy several times for these courses. As recently as 2003, it had decided to teach math and science in English, which then reflected the desire of government officials to keep pace with Singapore, as I explained on our blog, Curriculum Matters. The latest, Malay-only movement arises after objections from various interest groups, who feared that teaching math and science courses in English was unfair to the country's native population, particularly in rural areas, according to the Associated Press.

(Posted by guest blogger Sean Cavanagh.)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:12 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

I tracked down a report of an audit by Oregon education officials of programs for English-language learners in the Portland, Ore., school district that The Oregonian reported on early last month.

I share the audit report, which includes state officials' requirements for how Portland schools must improve programs for ELLs, with you because it touches on weaknesses in programs that I think are common in school districts. The main points of the audit are that the school system is not meeting state and federal laws because not all English-language learners in the district have access to the core curriculum. Also the audit requires that the school district provide more training for mainstream teachers to learn techniques for working with English-language learners.

Diana Fernandez, the director of programs for ELLs in the Portland district, told me in a phone interview that she welcomed the audit and requirements by the state to provide more consistency in programs for ELLs across the school district. "It emphasizes the sense of urgency we have ... This gives us leverage to say, 'This needs to happen,' " she said.

The school district has a limited number of dual-language programs at the elementary school level, in which students who are dominant in English and students who are dominant in another language learn both languages together, according to Fernandez. But most ELLs in grades K-8 receive help to learn English through pull-out classes in English as a second language. At the high school level, ELLs receive one class period of ESL each day and otherwise attend regular classes or in schools with a high number of ELLs, they may attend classes where "sheltered" techniques designed for ELLs are used.

Fernandez said the audit's complaint that not all ELLs have access to the core curriculum refers to students who are at the middle and upper levels of proficiency in English, not newcomers to the district. Not all ELLs are being scheduled for the rigorous courses they need to graduate. Some aren't being offered the sheltered instruction they need, she said.

In response to the audit, the district is stepping up its training of mainstream teachers in methods to teach ELLs, Fernandez said. The goal is to have the ELLs with intermediate and advanced proficiency more mixed with native-speakers of English, she said.

The Feb. 10 audit report says that within 60 days of receipt of the report, the district must have trained its first cohort of teachers in sheltered instruction. Also within 60 days, the district must revise schedules of ELLs to ensure that each one is enrolled in all required core content classes, the report says.

I think all educators should be asking the question of their own school district: Do all ELLs have access to required core content classes?

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:34 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)