What is bilingual education doing in Texas?

by Blair Lovern

Headline in the S-T Monday: "Public opinion doesn't follow the numbers" - followed by a story that makes Farmers Branch City Council member Tim O’Hare look silly.

Apparently O’Hare cannot counter what the S-T illuminates has been happening in Farmers Branch the past decade: crime down, SAT scores up, state accountability rating for the local ISD up. There is no hell in a hand basket scenario going on in Farmers Branch, according to the paper.

I take that back. O’Hare is able to press a point on home values, which have also gone up, although 22 percent less than the Dallas County average. He says property values have increased a measly 1.07 percent from 2005 to 2006. Other than that counter punch, O’Hare got his clocked cleaned.

That said, if a paper is going to make a case for what is and isn't happening in Farmers Branch, it has to present a full picture. The end of the S-T story falls apart because it relies on advocate journalism, which drives me crazy.

The final portion of the S-T story talks about bilingual and English as a second language programs. This segment is most ridiculous:

O’Hare said it must be inefficient to pump so much time and money into bilingual programs for these students.

The school district’s bilingual and ESL programs cost $3.6 million, 6.4 percent of the budget.

Isabella Piña-Hinojosa, the school district’s bilingual/ESL coordinator for program compliance, said the district pays certified bilingual teachers a $3,000 stipend in addition to their salary.

“Is the extra funding straining the budget? No,” she said.

Yeah, that's awesome. What about straining the kids' education? The S-T talks about bilingual funding, and the hiring rates of bilingual teachers. Nowhere does it mention how kids brought up in a bilingual education are doing in school. Here's a simple question: is it working? Good luck finding a simple answer.

Anyone remember this almost-1,300 word story on bilingual education in Farmers Branch in the DMN from Jan. 21? How many of those nearly 1,300 words concentrates on what the heck the results are from a bilingual education? This is the only paragraph I found, under a bold subhead.

Seeing quality results

District officials admit to challenges. But "as for education being down, that is not true," Superintendent Annette Griffin said. "The reason we can say that is because every school in Farmers Branch is recognized."

That's it. And I am to determine that the supremely vague answer given by Superintendent Griffin means "quality results." Nothing in the story supports or criticizes that statement with any numbers.

So what are the results of a bilingual education? I can give you some general answers. The DMN published a story Sunday about a bilingual teacher who says such an education works. "Decades of scientific research shows that the most efficient, effective and economical way to do this is with bilingual education," says Annette Elias Torres.

Really? That's interesting because I can also find people who say the complete opposite, such as the first Puerto Rican to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Or Rosalie Pedalino Porter, a former Spanish-language bilingual teacher, who wrote in The Atlantic Monthly: "The accumulated research of the past 30 years reveals almost no justification for teaching children in their native languages to help them learn either English or other subjects."

The dropout rate for Latino students in Texas is 40 percent, says one research group. (The official Texas Education Agency numbers are much rosier and much more misleading.) How is bilingual education affecting that dropout rate in this state? I've read that in general in America, it has no effect. And I've read that in Texas, bilingual education does not increase the dropout rate.

Now, I can tell you the authors of that Texas dropout study (Texas Educational Excellence Project) also found that the average state test pass rate for Latino students from 2002 to 2005 in Grand Prairie ISD was 61.20. For comparison, McKinney ISD was rated as the 26th-best district in the state (there are more than 1,000 school districts in Texas) in that time period, with a 72.30 pass rate. Between 2002-2005 the Dallas ISD pass rate for Latino students was 56.60.

I can also tell you that the Texas Education Agency is investigating 26 school districts in the state for lackluster bilingual education results.

And I can point you to comments by the co-founder of a Dallas preschool that helps Spanish speaking kids learn English before entering public school, and a Dallas ISD trustee, who say the current bilingual education program in Texas has got to go.

But back to the original S-T story. I've done a cursory look at what's going on, by no means an exhaustive one. If you've got more to add, by all means, do so in the comments section. Don't let that "you're a racist" crap start flying. I'm sick of those useless arguments. All I'm saying is that if the S-T or anyone else is going to claim "public opinion doesn't follow the numbers" then they're going to have to produce actual numbers the whole way through to prove their point.