NABE News Digest

#2006-1
January 6, 2006

The News Digest, an occasional publication for NABE members, features current articles of interest to bilingual educators. Information provided and opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors. No endorsement by NABE is implied. If you would prefer not to receive the News Digest, please click here to unsubscribe.

Foreign-Language Learning Promoted
Goal Is to Aid U.S. Security, Bush Says
President Bush announced plans yesterday to boost foreign-language study in the United States, casting the initiative as a strategic move to better engage other nations in combating terrorism and promoting freedom and democracy. "This program is a part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country," Bush said. The plans aim to involve children in foreign-language courses as early as kindergarten while increasing opportunities for college and graduate school instruction. Much of the instruction is intended to focus on what the U.S. government has identified as languages "critical" for national security. These include Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi, among others.
Washington Post, January 6, 2006

Florida Supreme Court Blocks School Vouchers
Tthe Florida Supreme Court struck down a voucher program yesterday for students attending failing schools, saying the State Constitution bars Florida from using taxpayer money to finance a private alternative to the public system. The 5-to-2 ruling orders state officials to end, at the close of this school year, a program that Gov. Jeb Bush has considered one of his chief accomplishments. Known as the Opportunity Scholarship Program, it uses public money to pay tuition for 730 students who have left failing public schools and enrolled in private schools.
New York Times, January 6, 2006

Arizona Gets Ultimatum on Aid for English-Learners
Arizona legislators and Gov. Janet Napolitano need to come up with a plan to provide more money for teaching English-language learners, or face fines of up to $2 million a day. In a ruling last month, a federal court gave the state until Jan. 24, or just 15 days following the start of its 2006 legislative session, to find a way to adequately fund programs for such students, or be fined $500,000 per day for 30 days. The daily fine would increase to a maximum of $2 million if the state continued to miss the court's deadlines.
Education Week , January 4, 2006

Chinese Language Study Catching on in U.S. Classrooms
In the U.S. Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee is considering a proposal to allocate $1.3 billion to boost Chinese language and culture classes in public schools, and China, too, is doing its part, said Michael Levine, education director at the Asia Society in New York City. China's education ministry has formed partnerships with states including Kentucky and Kansas, as well as the countries of Brazil, Australia and the United Kingdom, to boost teacher exchanges and training.
The Seattle Times, January 2, 2006

Plucked From Africa, but Still Isolated in Their Classes
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- There are 90 Somalian children in the public schools here, but they are spread among 21 schools. Many, like Idiris, are the only Somalis at their schools. While their mostly Hispanic classmates have many teachers who are bilingual and can clarify lessons in Spanish, the Somalis have received little or no classroom translation help during their two years here. Several interviewed at their homes one recent evening through a translator hired by this writer appeared to be as lost as Idiris. Mrs. Caldwell, a retiree who does volunteer work for several Somalian families, has filed a complaint with the federal Office of Civil Rights.
The New York Times, December 28, 2005

Valley Educators Welcome AIMS Reprieve
Thousand of students and teachers let out a huge sigh of relief after a federal judge ruled Friday that high school seniors struggling to learn English do not have to pass the AIMS test to get a diploma. Chief Tom Horne said he plans to immediately appeal the decision, with hopes of turning it around and keeping the mandate in place for the Class of 2006. Even if Horne loses the appeal, it won't mean that English-language learners will never have to pass the exit exam to graduate. The ruling indicated the requirement could be reinstated once the state has improved such education to the judge's satisfaction. ELL students still must pass their high school courses to earn a diploma.
The Arizona Republic, December 17, 2005

Youth Suspended for Speaking Spanish
Kansas City, Kan., resident Lorenzo Rubio is upset that his son, Zach, was suspended from the Turner School District's Endeaver School for two days. He is even more upset that the reason Zach was suspended was not for fighting or causing trouble, but for speaking Spanish at lunchtime with his friends. "I could not believe it," Rubio said. "I went to the school and spoke to Mrs. (Jennifer) Watts and asked her if this was school policy. She told me, 'no,' but said 'We are not in Mexico, we are not in Germany.'"
Kansas City Kansan, December 5, 2005

English-Only Activist Returns to Tech Roots
Ron Unz, the multimillionaire software entrepreneur from Palo Alto, bankrolled anti-bilingual education measures that won voter approval in California, Arizona and Massachusetts between 1998 and 2002. But the Harvard-trained theoretical physicist, who earlier tried an uphill grab at the 1994 GOP nomination for California governor and lost, has given up political activism. Working out of his Palo Alto home-office, Unz has returned to what made him a multimillionaire: developing software.
Mercury News, December 4, 2005

The Perfect Literacy Test
If Katrina came close to being the perfect storm, in the awful sense of the storm that had all the attributes to do the most harm to the lives of those whose destructive power and irresistible forces it touched, then there is a perfect literacy test sweeping through American schools and doing the maximum amount of damage to the lives of those it touches. The perfect literacy test is the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills (DIBELS) developed by a federally funded group at the University of Oregon. It is being widely mandated as part of the No Child Left Behind plan each state must submit to the federal bureaucracy that controls NCLB funding. What makes DIBELS the perfect literacy test is that it takes total control of the academic futures and school lives of the children it reaches from the first day they enter kindergarten when they are barely five years old. It keeps control of their literacy development and indeed their whole school experience for four years from kindergarten through third grade. And the more poorly the children respond to DIBELS the more they experience it.
Language Magazine, December, 2005