Gifts Special Needs and Issues - The Growing Numbers Of Lep Students

The formal definition of Limited English Proficient (LEP): "Students who were not born in the United States or whose native language is not English and cannot participate effectively in the regular curriculum because they have difficulty speaking, understanding, reading and writing in English."

There were more than 4.4 million LEP students in 2000, double the 2.1 million in 1990. LEP students are concentrated at the K-3 grade level. They are a growing share of the total elementary and secondary school enrollment, increasing from 5.5 to 9.3% in the last decade. Why the increase? Immigration. The number of immigrants in recent years has fallen but was on the increase in 1980s, climbing from 530,639 in 1980 to 1.82 million in 1991. Children of these immigrants are now attending school. The efforts to educate them is complicated by the fact many still speak their native language at home. Census data show that the number of children who speak a second language at home has been on the increase, from 6.4 million in 1992 to 6.7 million in 1995 to 8.8 million in 1999.

In traditional bilingual education classes, students with limited command of English are assigned to speak, read, and write in their home language first. Once they have proficiency in Spanish, say, they are taught in English. But some students were spending too long in their native language classes and reported feeling they had lost ground in gaining English language skills. Some educators feel that the gap never gets closed.

It isn't as simple as teaching children in Spanish either. Spanish is the native language for LEP students. But over 400 languages are spoken by LEP students nationwide. Spanish is the native language of 75% of the students. In most states the second language varies wildly. States cite such tongues as Navajo, Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, Serbo-Croatian. In some states, such as Alaska, Montana, Maine, Vermont and Minnesota, Spanish is not even the top language spoken by LEP students.

We are beginning to rethink how we educate our immigrant students. In 1998, California voters passed Proposition 227. It mandated that all English learners be educated "overwhelmingly" in English immersion programs. Supporters of bilingual education argued that this would harm students. The president of the National Association of Bilingual Education claimed it would be an "evil day" if the initiative passed.

The predicted disaster never came. The opposite happened — test scores went up. The New York Times reported in 2000 that for second graders the average score in reading for an LEP student increased 9% over the previous two years. Math scores increased 14 points during the same period. One school, Oceanside Unified School District, saw such a dramatic improvement in reading scores (from the 32nd to the 12th percentile) that its superintendent — the founding president of the California Association for Bilingual Education — became a convert to English immersion programs. Oceanside's improvement was particularly striking compared to the nearby Vista school. Half of Vista's students were granted waivers to remain in bilingual education. Vista, similar to Oceanside in size and economic background, saw much smaller improvement.

Is English immersion an unqualified success in California? Well, to be fair, other factors were at work at work as well. Class sizes had shrunk in many elementary grades. New teaching styles had been implemented in schools, such as a return to basic sound-it-out phonics programs. Also, not all schools saw impressive gains in test scores.

The developments in California — a state that has always been a trend setter — are being felt elsewhere. Voters in Arizona recently gave overwhelming support to Proposition 203, a proposal similar to 227. Legislation to dismantle bilingual education has surfaced in Colorado.

Is bilingual education doomed? Some of the anecdotal evidence coming out of schools suggests that English immersion — a "sink or swim" policy — may be the way to go. It seems ironic. This is happening just as some schools are seeing their foreign language programs disappear and are striving to be "multicultural" in their curriculum.

Sources: Chart comes from Kindler, Anneka. National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, Survey of the States' Limited English Proficient Students & Available Educational Programs and Services 1999-2000 Summary Report, May 2002, prepared for the U.S. Department of Education. "Facts About Limited English Proficient Students." Retrieved May 29, 2002 from http://www.ed.gov; Jacques Steinberg. "Test Scores Rise, Surprising Critics of Bilingual Ban." New York Times, August 20, 2000, p. A1; Ken Noonan. "I Believed That Bilingual Education Was Best…Until the Kids Proved Me Wrong." Washington Post, September 3, 2000.