GILROY
– Positive results on recent assessments of Spanish-speaking
kindergartners are challenging long-held opinions that closing the
performance gap between English and non-English speakers, at least
over the short term, is an insurmountable task.
GILROY – Positive results on recent assessments of Spanish-speaking kindergartners are challenging long-held opinions that closing the performance gap between English and non-English speakers, at least over the short term, is an insurmountable task.
Less than five months into a new, districtwide bilingual education program, Eliot Elementary School is reporting enormous jumps in its Spanish-speaking kindergartners’ ability to read and write their name, the alphabet, common words and numbers one through 20.
In October, no kindergartners with little or no English knew how to write or read any words on a list of 35 common words. Now, in the case of two Eliot kindergarten classes, 100 percent of the Spanish-speaking students know 30 of the words and 25 percent know all of them on the list.
“This data really puts a twist on things,” Gilroy Unified Superintendent Edwin Diaz said. “It makes you reconsider your expectations for (English Language Learners).”
The improvements don’t stop there.
On a standardized reading and oral language exam taken in September, Eliot kindergartners had an average score of 18 percent correct. Two months later, the scores jumped to 48 percent correct.
“When we test again in March, we are sure it will be much higher,” Eliot Principal Diane Elia said.
GUSD is in the midst of a far-reaching district goal to see that 90 percent of its students are at grade level in math and reading by June 2004. In addition, GUSD wants to cut the performance gap between any subgroup – such as English and non-English speakers – to just a 5 percent difference.
Current gaps between test scores of English and non-English speakers are wide. No more than 11 percent of English Language Learners in the GUSD last year were reading at grade level. Meanwhile, as many as 60 percent of the GUSD’s Engligh-speaking students read at grade level.
In this state-mandated climate of higher accountability for student performance on standardized tests, improving scores is crucial. Enter the district’s new “neighborhood schools” enrollment policy and the improvement is especially important for the school district’s eastern-most elementary school, Eliot.
“Neighborhood schools” mean students attend the campus nearest to where they live. The policy shift triggered an influx at Eliot of more than 100 additional English Language Learners, the district’s formal name for students who speak little or no English. Overall, Eliot has less than 400 kids enrolled.
“We had 24 ELL students last year. Now that number is matched by just one class,” Elia said.
Eliot educators figured to see student test scores drop in future years because English speakers traditionally outperform their Spanish-speaking counterparts on standardized tests – the state’s measurement of school accountability.
“I had many conversations with staff before the start of this year. I told them, ‘If you’re not up to the challenge, you may want to find another place to go,’ ” Elia said.
The principal lost two teachers as a result of the enrollment change.
Elia still has concerns that her school has a built-in disadvantage toward meeting state and district improvement goals. When Eliot students this spring take the state-mandated standardized exams, their test scores will be compared to student scores from last spring in order to gauge improvement.
“It’s criminal to make students take a test that judges their academic abilities in a language they don’t know. I have nothing against monitoring achievement, but it has to be fair,” Elia said.
Besides the Eliot kindergarten scores, there are other signs of hope in the district. Martha Martinez, the GUSD’s director of English Language Learner instruction, presented standardized test scores to school board trustees earlier in January. The scores show ELL students improving in reading across all grade levels from one year ago.
On the same test, English speakers’ scores flattened or dropped across three grade levels.
Across the GUSD, Spanish-speaking students are given special materials and instruction. Purely bilingual classes are offered at Las Animas School and the district is encouraging other schools to do the same.
In other elementary schools, a program using specialized English instruction with some native language is used. At the middle school and high school levels, other specialized programs are taught in English and separate students based on their ability levels.
There are roughly 3,000 English Language Learners enrolled in the GUSD, comprising 30 percent of the district’s student population.
“There are many variables that will play into the success of the English Language Learner program,” Martinez says. “The biggest piece is professional development (training teachers). We can’t say enough or do enough about that piece of the puzzle.”
Nearly 240 GUSD teachers, 55 percent of its credentialed staff, have been trained in bilingual education. Training includes attendance at bilingual education seminars, in-class observations by site leaders and participation in peer coaching exercises.
