Charter Schools Fail Immigrants

Over the course of the last two decades, charter schools have become a ubiquitous feature of the urban educational landscape. Their expansion is poised to continue under the Obama administration. According to the Center for Education Reform, forty states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, and the U.S. Department of Education estimates that 1.4 million public school students, or 2.8 percent of the total, are currently being educated in charter schools. In New York State, the number of public charter schools has grown from five in 1999 to 141 in 2009. This September alone 21 new charter schools opened in New York City.

While charter schools appear to have strong support from the U.S. Secretary of Education, many state governors, big city mayors, and urban education leaders, they remain a highly contested educational policy. Each year, researchers produce reams of competing data about how the academic outcomes of students in charter schools compare to similar students in public schools, and ultimately, the results are inconclusive. The merits of charter schools have also been challenged in terms of their impact on race- and income-based school segregation. This becomes a tricky debate when the question of culturally-specific charter schools comes into play. What is not yet clear is how charter schools are serving the needs of our newest Americans: English language learner (ELL) children of immigrants.

Children in immigrant families are the fastest-growing sector of the school-age population in the United States today. Correspondingly, the number of ELL students has also risen dramatically in recent years. Between 1995-96 and 2005-06, the proportion of students in U.S. schools classified as ELL increased from 6.8 to 10.3 percent. Despite this massive population growth, remarkably few interventions have been designed with their needs in mind. In fact, there is evidence that ELLs may be systematically excluded from some of the newest educational innovations. Our recent analysis of New York State data showed that ELL students are severely underrepresented in charter schools across the state. While 7.4 percent of students in district public schools statewide were classified as ELL during the 2006-2007 academic year, they comprised only 2.1 percent of charter school enrollments. Moreover, sixty schools or 66 percent of all charter schools in New York State that year had no ELL students enrolled at all.

Disaggregating the data to the district level reveals alarming results as well. In New York City, for example, where fifty-seven charter schools were operating in 2006-2007, while 13.4 percent of students in the district's public schools were classified as ELL only 2.3 percent of students in charter schools were ELLs. Furthermore, our research revealed that the majority of ELLs served in New York City charter schools that year was in fact concentrated in a single school. Removing this one school from aggregate calculations lowers the 2006-2007 ELL charter school enrollment in New York City to a mere 1.5 percent.

Why the glaring mismatch between charter school enrollments and the growing English language learner population? Schools today are asked to meet increasingly rigorous standards while serving an ever more racially, ethnically, socioeconomically, and linguistically diverse student population. Many school administrators have limited or no experience working with ELL students. It's an open secret that others are plainly afraid that these students will bring down their school's academic performance and drain resources. Immigrant families may also be unfamiliar with charter schools and may be unaware of the possibility of participating in a charter school lottery.

There are a variety of ways to address the failure of charters to serve ELL students. First, policy-makers should establish clear guidelines and benchmarks for ELL enrollment in charter schools along with smart incentives and supports. If the school leadership believes that serving ELLs will jeopardize long-term viability and if they do not receive adequate resources to meet these students' needs, they have no motivation to reach out and encourage them to participate in school lotteries. A number of exemplary schools already exist, and they can serve as models of how to effectively serve ELL students.

Focusing on language development, creating a school culture of shared responsibility for ELL student progress, developing structures for collaboration among teachers, using student data to inform academic foci, and investing in efforts to engage families are only some of the strategies that schools have developed and adopted. Policy-makers and educators alike should seek out these schools as thought partners, mentors, and models whose practices can be customized to fit each school and student population. An arduous task lies ahead, but charter schools must take the steps necessary to embrace an ever more diverse student population and adapt to the challenges and opportunities of education in the twenty-first century.

Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj is a Ph. D. Candidate at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco is the Fisher Membership Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ & the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University. Their forthcoming book, Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World, will be published by the New York University Press in the spring.

Comments

[rlugbill]

I used to teach English as a Second Language in public schools. I think we are doing Spanish-speaking children a disservice by keeping them segregated by language group. They should be mainstreamed so they learn English more quickly.

They should be paired up with an English-speaking child in an English classroom. They should be seated next to an English-speaking student, rather than leaving them next to some Spanish-speaking child. Also, some small group work in English or English tutoring on the side (pull-out program), with English spoken at their level. You use pictures, motions, toys, etc. combined with English words in the begining to get the point across and they will start learning it.

They can learn English quickly. They need English if they are going to succeed in this society. Schools who do not make the English language a priority are failing their students. It is such schools who are failing the non-native English speakers, not the Charter Schools.

[blindjester]

"I think we are doing Spanish-speaking children a disservice by keeping them segregated by language group. They should be mainstreamed so they learn English more quickly."

What you think turns out to be completely irrelevant, because it's completely wrong.

Students learn English FASTER in a bilingual program. And they learn other content better.

The research on this is rock-solid. Check into it.

[AnimalLover6]

Nonsense. Funny how every other immigrant group to this country has managed to learn English--and excel--without bilingual programs.

[elgato40]

Unfortunately, the whole issue of what's expected of immigrants regarding language skills has transitioned from "the dog wags the tail" to "the tail wags the dog." When the parents of a child are semi-literate, undereducated immigrants (typically what you get from Mexico/Central America) as opposed to skilled, educated ones (eg, Cuban, Russian, Chinese), it is even more imperative that the child become immersed in the American culture/language and distanced from his/her native culture. As someone who didn't learn English until I was 11 years old (it took me all of 3 months to learn conversational English, writing a little longer), I feel little affinity for people and institutions that want to keep immigrant children in bilingual classes until they're in high school.

[blindjester]

"...it is even more imperative that the child become immersed in the American culture/language and distanced from his/her native culture."

I can't believe how many people came here to talk out their a**.

It's a lot of home-grown psychology masquerading as informed thought.

[elgato40]

Nice of you to selectively quote from my post. As to home-grown psychology, I'm sure you mastered it at whatever School of Education you went to.

[steviez]

My child attends Our World Neighborhood Charter School in Astoria, Queens and I have served on the board of trustees. We have over 700 students and the majority are children of immigrants. Over 50 countries are represented by our students. The great majority of our ELL's (English Language Learners) actually place out of ESL classes and are mainstreamed in two years -- therefore they are no longer considered ELL's -- due to the school's success.
The idea that charter schools discourage ELL's or circumvent their entry in patently false. It is similar to another charge—that charter schools are self-selecting because only parents who are really invested in their kids education apply. Both these charges are bogus and disregard the very real achievements charter schools are showing.
Charter school critics should do some serious study of just what it is that charter schools are doing right. Something valuable is happening.

[AnimalLover6]

But when the ultimate goal is to ensure that charter schools become permanently bilingual in Spanish and English, promoting the interests of one immigrant group over and above all others, the fact that a charter school successfully mainstreams ELLs out of the bilingual classroom into an English-only classroom is precisely what the Latino political community does not want.

[blindjester]

Yes, of course, it's a conspiracy to replace English with Spanish.

We would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling "English only" people....

[MerrieWay]

Children historically learn best in their native (first spoken) language. There are bi-lingual immersion programs, whereby English speaking students are taught half of the school day in a second language, a reversal of the immigrant student learning English. The immersion program was dropped in grades 1-3 because the students were falling behind in the basic 3 R's. In classrooms with multiple languages spoken it is necessary to separate the learners into specific groups in order to teach an optimum methodology.

With the dumbing-down, lowering the expectations has put a tailspin on the average student. If a classroom has multiple languages being spoken (52) different dialects in Los Angeles schools, it's no wonder that we have hit the bottom of the barrel on the global educational frontier.

Charter schools rely on parental and community support, which gives them an edge. Are the statistics regarding immigrant children not being served by Charters considering the neighborhood demographics? Or are they basing it on a bussing system, lottery draw?

[AnimalLover6]

OF COURSE people learn best in their first language. Hardly news. But immigrant children have been learning English in American schools for generations. There is no reason why MILLIONS of dollars should be poured into bilingual programs simply because the Latino immigrant population wants to force Spanish onto everyone else. Why should other immigrant children from other countries--already trying to learn English themselves--be forced into speaking Spanish? Because that's what is really meant by "bilingualism." Cambodian, Vietnamese, Somalian, Chinese children all--someh­ow--manage to learn English without having special bilingual programs geared to their native language. Why can't Spanish-speaking children do the same? And here's another little fact that La Raza doesn't want anyone to know: A large percentage of so-called "Latino" children actually do not speak Spanish at home. What they speak is an Indian language. And their Spanish is very shaky. So now they're forced into "bilingual" classrooms in which they must learn BOTH Spanish and English. The whole bilingual thing is a scam, pushed by the Latino political caucus as a way to get Spanish into the schools. These people don't seem to understand the meaning of the word "immigrant."

[blindjester]

You resent the immigrants. Don't want to pay any of your money to help them.

I get that.

But that's not sound educational policy.

[violettefemme]

I live in San Diego, and can tell you from first hand experience, that coddling an immigrant population, whether documented or not, does not make them, or the country, stronger, better or more moral.

Expecting them to come here and assimilate as the way of holding up their end of the deal seems more than fair...all my grandparents as well as all my great-grandparents came here and assimilated and learned the language.

Our schools here in CA are failing as institutions and are failing our children by spending more and more to try to teach english to people who don't even try, who are born here but speak with an accent.

How many of their parents' bad decisions does the nation need to absorb and spend our own money to correct? My neighbor has had 6 children here, and not one of them can speak and comprehend as a native. Yet she and her husband continue to speak Spanish at home, even as they get (free) English classes, year after year...it never ends.

We owe every child here the same education, it's not for public schools to have to tailor the system to the overwhelming tide of one country's people. Every time they are forced to do everything in both Spanish and English, it takes money away from a real education. Bi lingual ed does not work and calling them "ELL" won't work either.

[blindjester]

"Expecting them to come here and assimilate as the way of holding up their end of the deal seems more than fair..."

We don't establish curriculum based on "fair"--especially not when "fair" means "they don't deserve our money."

Education policy (at its best) is decided by what works, not by what placates the bigots.

[AnimalLover6]

Charter Schools were not needed for previous generations of immigrant children. Why are they needed now? Why is it about this current generation of immigrants who seem to need all these special privileges?

[blindjester]

I agree.

We don't need charter schools.

Well said.

[TBukher]

As I understand it, Charter school acceptance in NY works on a lottery system. So the idea of charter schools rejecting ELL students is ridiculous.

Plus, when I was an ELL student, my parents did not try to enroll me in a charter school because we had no idea that such things existed and the state of New York had no programs to educate us about this option (I imagine because certain unions lobbied heavily against such programs). This could be another reason that ELL students are underrepresented in the charter system.

[gavrielle]

When my parents were children they spoke only Russian and were sent back to the first grade to learn English. Not only could they speak the language fluently within a few months (little kids pointing fingers will do that for you) but they went on to become Honor Roll students and attend university.

Stop coddling your children and let them become full-fledged Americans early. They'll do better in life. My parents made sure I never learned Russian (though they spoke it in private). They didn't want me held back by a language barrier or even a slight accent that might cost me a job opportunity. And they were right. I know enough about my heritage to love it, but not enough to give me divided loyalties to my country. You do your children no favors when you fight to keep them ghettoized by language and custom. And you upset other Americans, whose parents and grandparents struggled to become citizens without any government help and did just fine. Part of being an American is to make it on your own by being the best you can be. Crippling the school system by making it Latino-centric, Asia-centric or otherwise NON-American is offensive to those of us who never sought to impose our language and customs on the country that so graciously offered to accept us.

[AnimalLover6]

THANK you. My mother and her family were immigrants. Dirt poor immigrants. My uncles worked as janitors 12 hours/day, then studied English at night. They committed themselves to integrating into American culture. They knew it was THEIR responsibility to learn English and to adapt to the American culture. Certainly neither they nor their parents expected Americans to provide them with special schools, etc. In fact, no other immigrant community has ever required this. What is wrong with the Latino immigrant community? They immigrate (often illegally) to American culture, and they cry and whine about how "racist" Americans are because they won't celebrate Latino culture and language, and won't spend hundreds of millions of dollars on special schools and programs just for them. If they want to live in a Latino culture, they can move to a Latino culture. If they want to speak Spanish, speak it at home or among friends and family. Nobody's stopping them. This is what immigrants to this nation have always done. I also notice that this article is very, very careful to avoid pointing out the fact that the vast majority of ELLs are the children of immigrant Latinos. They are trying to make this seem like a problem for all immigrant communities, when it's not. This is the way the Left is dishonest (and I'm further to the Left than Left, on most issues).

[blindjester]

I'm sure you believe that story.

It defies everything we know about language. But it's a nice story.

BTW: education is not "coddling."

[gavrielle]

What *who* knows about language formation in early childhood?

And yes, it is coddling. Full immersion works. The job of a child is to learn - fast. They are designed for it. By taking years to bring them up to speed you slow down the process and handicap them. The younger the child, the faster they learn. Teens can take tutoring on the side, but learning proper English in this country is paramount to becoming successful outside one's historic community. And moving out into the greater community is equally important. America isn't multicultural, it is a melting pot.

[AnimalLover6]

Who's "we"? Full immersion has a spectacular success record. Bilingual education, not so much. I think that a range of foreign language courses should be offered in every school, from elementary through high school, and I think the learning of a foreign language (at least one) should be mandatory. But the choice of language should be up to the student.