Harvard Educational Review
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Fall 2002 Issue

Article Abstracts:

• Complexity, Accountability, and School Improvement
  -by Jennifer A. O'Day
• Diversity and Higher Education: Theory and Impact on Educational Outcomes
  -by Patricia Gurin, Eric L. Dey, Sylvia Hurtado, and Gerald Gurin
• Democracy and Education: The Missing Link May Be Ours
  -by John Willinsky

Fall 2002 Reviews of Current Books (Full-Text)

• Why Don't They Learn English? Separating Fact from Fallacy in the U.S. Language Debate
  by Lucy Tse

• Overlooked and Underserved: Immigrant Students in U.S. Secondary Schools
  by Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco, Michael Fix, and Beatriz Chu Clewell

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Harvard Educational Review
Fall 2002 Article Abstracts:

Jennifer A. O'Day

In this article, Jennifer O'Day builds on her earlier work defining and examining the standards-based reform movement in the United States. Here, O'Day explores accountability mechanisms currently associated with standards-based reform efforts that "take the school as the unit of accountability and seek to improve student learning by improving the functioning of the school organization." She examines such accountability mechanisms using the theoretical framework of complexity theory and focuses on how information travels through complex systems, with the understanding that information, its existence and usage, is key to improving schools. Drawing on work conducted with researchers at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), she contrasts the Chicago Public Schools' outcomes-based bureaucratic accountability approach with the combination of administrative and professional accountability found in the Baltimore City Schools. She argues that the combination of administrative and professional accountability presents a much more promising approach for implementing lasting and meaningful school reform. (pp. 293-329)

Patricia Gurin, Eric L. Dey, Sylvia Hurtado, and Gerald Gurin

In the current context of legal challenges to affirmative action and race-based considerations in college admissions, educators have been challenged to articulate clearly the educational purposes and benefits of diversity. In this article, Patricia Gurin, Eric Dey, Sylvia Hurtado, and Gerald Gurin explore the relationship between students' experiences with diverse peers in the college or university setting and their educational outcomes. Rooted in theories of cognitive development and social psychology, the authors present a framework for understanding how diversity introduces the relational discontinuities critical to identity construction and its subsequent role in fostering cognitive growth. Using both single- and multi-institutional data from the University of Michigan and the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, the authors go on to examine the effects of classroom diversity and informal interaction among African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and White students on learning and democracy outcomes. The results of their analyses underscore the educational and civic importance of informal interaction among different racial and ethnic groups during the college years. The authors offer their findings as evidence of the continuing importance of affirmative action and diversity efforts by colleges and universities, not only as a means of increasing access to higher education for greater numbers of students, but also as a means of fostering students' academic and social growth. (pp. 330-366)

John Willinsky

In this article, John Willinsky calls on educational researchers to consider participating in scholarly publishing experiments that leverage information technologies. Willinsky argues that publishing systems that provide greater public access to educational research are likely to help us to better understand and extend Dewey's democratic theory of education while promoting a more deliberative democratic state. Through this appeal, researchers can expand education's role within democracy by increasing the impact educational research has on practice and by providing an alternative perspective to the media's coverage of educational issues. The author challenges researchers to participate in this democratic experiment by thinking of their work as a way to expand global opportunities for edification and deliberation within the public sphere of this information economy. (pp. 367-392)

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Harvard Educational Review
Fall 2002 Reviews of Current Books
(Full Text)

 
Why Don’t They Learn English? Separating Fact from Fallacy in the U.S. Language Debate
by Lucy Tse.
New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. 120 pp. $42.00, $18.95 (paper).

In Why Don’t They Learn English? Separating Fact from Fallacy in the U.S. Language Debate, Lucy Tse provides an account of the state of English and immigrant home languages in the United States. She challenges the notion that immigrants do not learn English and instead cling to and perpetuate the use of their home, or heritage, language across multiple generations. These perceptions, which Tse says are held by the general public and reflected and perpetuated by the media and policymakers, have influenced current policies on the teaching and learning of English for immigrants. However, citing the most recent research in the fields of second language acquisition and immigrant studies, Tse points out the disparities between these public perceptions and the actual state of English-language learning and use of heritage languages. She debunks existing myths and provides an alternative frame for both policymakers and practitioners in thinking about immigrant language education and policy in the United States today.

In chapter one, Tse outlines how public perceptions of immigrant language use have shaped current language restriction policies. She looks at proposed constitutional amendments that have come before the U.S. Congress in the past twenty years, which would require the elimination of the use of any language other than English in arenas such as governmental business, social services, and education. Tse examines speeches by congressional leaders and newspaper opinion articles to identify the arguments used to support these official English-language constitutional amendments specifically, and the English-only movement in general. These speeches and articles often include claims that immigrants resist learning English once they are in the United States. Further, these documents often include anti–bilingual education rhetoric that characterizes bilingual education programs as ineffective at best at teaching immigrant children English, and more often painting these programs as a means by which immigrants are insulated from having to learn English. In fact, bilingual education programs and services are often perceived by the general public as doing little to teach English and promote the assimilation of immigrants, which many view as vital to national security. Tse writes that “public opinion on how well children are learning English, as indicated by newspaper opinion pages, mirrors policy-maker views that immigrants and their children are not learning English quickly enough or well enough, and the use of languages other than English in school is to blame” (p. 8).

In chapter two, Tse points out that these beliefs are, in fact, based on myths. She cites evidence from research that describes how both immigrant adults and children are learning English — often quickly — despite the multiple challenges they face at both the personal and societal level. Tse begins by looking at trends in immigration, noting that while numbers of immigrants have reached new highs, the actual percentage of immigrants in the total U.S. population has steadily declined since 1990. She points out that during the immigration wave of the early 1900s, despite a higher proportion of non-English-speaking newcomers in the United States, English maintained its status as the language of the nation. Alarmists who currently worry about the status and future of English in the United States would do well to keep this in mind. Tse argues that immigrants today have an even more compelling reason to learn English than did their predecessors of the early twentieth century — today’s service-oriented economy requires higher levels of education and higher English proficiency than did the economy of the early twentieth century.

Immigrants are well aware of their economic situation and, in fact, an overwhelming number of them are learning English, despite public perception to the contrary. Citing U.S. Census data, Tse indicates that immigrant adults report having better English skills the longer they have resided in the United States. She also notes the overwhelming demand for the limited supply of English as a Second Language classes in immigrant communities. Furthermore, Tse speaks specifically to the questions surrounding language learning and academic achievement for immigrant children. She draws on important studies to offer readers a clearer understanding of the state of English-language learning and trends in academic achievement for immigrants and their children. She cites Portes and Hao’s 1988 study that shows not only that children of immigrants are learning English, but also that the overwhelming number of them want to learn English for social and economic reasons. Most children of immigrants feel compelled to learn English so that they can more easily make friends and participate in social events. Tse writes that “among these students . . . English fluency is a badge of prestige, a membership card for entry into the mainstream” (p. 19). They also understand that job and career opportunities are limited for those who cannot speak English. She points to equally important studies such as Portes and Rumbaut’s 1996 study that show that first-generation limited English proficient (LEP) students perform equally well in school as their English-only counterparts. Tse notes that, although there is “variation in performance across ethnic groups and the originating country, immigrant children perform remarkably well overall both in terms of English-language proficiency and in academic achievement and progress” (p. 21). According to Tse, these findings clearly debunk the myth that immigrant students are opposed to or resist English-language learning.

Tse acknowledges, however, that not all children are learning English and performing academically at an equal rate. Research points to factors such as income, literacy skills and background, and quality of previous general educational experiences that greatly influence English-learning and academic outcomes. A closer examination of relevant background variables will further illuminate our understanding of such variation. This is equally true for adult English-language learners, who often must face high levels of poverty, long work weeks, and insufficient English-language programs to gain proficiency in English. Tse points out that, due to variation in circumstances across different immigrant groups and populations, English-language learning occurs at different rates. Yet, despite this variation, and contrary to public perception, immigrants are learning English and do succeed in school. She writes that “these achievements are being made in spite of formidable economic and social obstacles, including a high level of poverty and inadequate publicly supported English language programs” (p. 29).

In chapters three, four, and five, Tse addresses what she sees as a greater problem — the loss of heritage languages among immigrant populations by the third generation. Chapter three describes the typical (and short) life of an immigrant language and explores why the heritage language is often completely replaced by English in the immigrant family’s home. In the United States, the English language has powerful appeal, both economically and socially, and immigrants often internalize societal pressure to give up the home language in order to gain English ability. Even when immigrant families do not explicitly seek to lose their home language, limited exposure to and opportunities to learn the heritage language contribute to heritage-language loss. Parents, community members, and especially peers will greatly influence the maintenance or loss of an immigrant child’s heritage language.

Chapter four explores the benefits of heritage-language development and the consequences of heritage-language loss. Referring to second language acquisition research, Tse points out that for English-language learners, drawing on their primary language can speed the acquisition of English. Education in the heritage language also allows for continued education in core subject matters, so these children do not fall behind in these areas while they acquire English. Tse points out further that “developing heritage languages and fostering bilingualism . . . result in both personal and societal advantages in economic, political, social, and educational sectors” (p. 53).

Tse points out that there is a linguistic blind spot of public perceptions and educational policies in the United States. On the one hand, foreign language programs abound and proliferate, reaching a 30-year high in 1990, in response to governmental reports and political rhetoric lamenting the lack of foreign-language and international experience among Americans. On the other hand, the route to bilingualism through heritage-language maintenance programs is largely being ignored by policymakers and practitioners — and immigrant children lose their heritage language at great personal and societal cost.

What then is the solution? Tse advocates providing exposure to the heritage language and expanding conventional notions of group membership through heritage-language education. Tse points to language acquisition research that identifies strong affiliation with ethnic group membership as being key to the contribution of language development. Heritage-language programs, as envisioned in Tse’s book, go beyond the typical bilingual education programs, whose goals are primarily to move into mainstream English classes rather than to maintain the heritage language while acquiring English. The heritage-language programs for which Tse advocates would provide context-embedded exposure to the heritage language by encouraging such practices as recreational reading in the heritage language while also promoting positive attitudes toward the heritage language through group membership.

Tse ends this book by reiterating that public perceptions of immigrant language learning are based on fallacies that hurt, rather than on truths that might help to create effective language practice and policy solutions for immigrant children and adults. Although not an exhaustive treatment of the subject by any means, Tse’s book offers an accessible and concise summary of the status of English-language learning for immigrant populations for policymakers and practitioners, and provides an important alternative frame through which to view challenges and solutions for English-language learners in the United States.

E.F.

 
Overlooked and Underserved: Immigrant Students in U.S. Secondary Schools
by Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco, Michael Fix, and Beatriz Chu Clewell.
Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2000. 102 pp. $5.00.

As the number of immigrant children in schools throughout the United States grows at an unprecedented rate, the issue of immigrant children’s educational adaptation is receiving increasing attention from scholars and educators nationwide. However, much of the literature in the field of immigration and education focuses on youth who immigrated as children. Little research has examined the experiences of students who immigrated as adolescents, or the challenges faced by secondary schools that receive a large number of these students. Jorge Ruiz-de-Valasco, Michael Fix, and Beatriz Chu Clewell’s new book, Overlooked and Underserved: Immigrant Students in U.S. Secondary Schools, fills this gap in the literature by examining two “overlooked and underserved” subpopulations of immigrant children who pose particular challenges to secondary schools: students who immigrated in their teens (particularly those who had poor schooling in their country of origin) and students the authors term “long-term LEP” (limited English proficienct).

The book is a report of the Program in Immigrant Education (PRIME), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The PRIME program was launched in 1993. It had three components: demonstration sites in middle and high schools, guidance from experts in school reform, and a national coordination organization. The purpose of the demonstration sites is to “strengthen participating schools’ capacity to meet the needs of immigrant students by helping them plan, organize, and implement reforms” (p. 34). The three expert school reform organizations that work with the schools are California Tomorrow in Oakland, California; the Center for Language Minority Education and Research at California State University, Long Beach; and the Department of Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC, serves as the national coordinating organization.

The authors begin by presenting findings from earlier studies funded by Mellon and give an overview of the themes and organization of the new report, which “documents the changes in the immigrant student population to which the Program [PRIME] responds, the challenges the demonstration projects faced, and the responses that participating schools made in collaboration with their reform partners. The report also distills lessons drawn from the demonstration projects about improving education for immigrant secondary students” (p. vii). In preparing the report, the authors visited ten participating middle and high schools in five school districts, where they interviewed teachers, school administrators, and project leaders. They used both a quantitative analysis of aggregate databases and a qualitative analysis of the issues that the interviewees described in trying to better meet the needs of immigrant youth. The mixed method offers the readers a rich view of the adaptation of immigrant youth and how the schools can respond to this new population.

In chapter one, the authors summarize the core findings and conclusions that they cover in detail in each subsequent section of the report. These include the national profile of the immigrant student population, challenges to educating immigrant children at the secondary level, organizational and accountability structures of secondary schools, reform strategies/responses, and selected practice and policy lessons. In chapter two, the authors document the trends in the composition, growth, demographic characteristics, geographic concentration, and academic performances of immigrant children in U.S. schools from 1970 to 1995. Their analysis is based on two national datasets: the U.S. Census and the U.S. Department of Education’s Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). The authors point out the steady growth in the number of immigrant children in the nation’s schools, the significant growth in the LEP population and native Spanish speakers, the mismatch between distribution of children and resources, the growing number and percentage of immigrant children who are poor, the deepening segregation of LEP students, and dropout rates that vary by immigrant group. While most scholars today note the growing number of immigrant children, in this report the authors highlight overlooked aspects of immigrant children’s experiences, particularly issues of poverty and segregation, both of which have important implications for their overall adaptation.

Chapter three describes the design of the PRIME program and the participating schools, as well as the states and communities in which they are located. Chapter four focuses on the two underserved immigrant subgroups — underschooled teen newcomers and long-term LEPs — and the challenges schools face to meet those students’ needs. The authors define the underschooled teen newcomers as students who typically have been in the United States for four years or fewer, arrive with little English-language fluency and limited native-language literacy, and usually perform three or more years below the age-appropriate grade level in math and other core subjects. They define long-term LEPs as “a growing number of first (and sometimes second)-generation teen children of immigrants, who have been educated in U.S. elementary schools, are usually orally fluent in English, but continue to perform several years below grade level in English reading comprehension and writing skills” (p. 45). These underschooled teens tend to require more personal attention from teachers in building study habits and developing classroom behaviors required in the new school environment. Many of these students also have to take a part-time job to help the family, further complicating their learning in school. The majority of these long-term LEP students have already exhausted bilingual education or other language programs provided by their school. Typically their special weakness lies not in speaking English, but in writing and reading it.

The authors examine the political and fiscal operating contexts of secondary schools that are likely to constrain educators’ ability to respond effectively to these students’ special educational needs. For example, the literacy and language needs of the LEP students challenge the notion among many secondary school educators that basic literacy development usually occurs in primary school. In addition, secondary schools lack the assessment tools necessary for evaluating the academic progress of LEP students. The authors also explore the politics of immigrant education — the fact that the sudden increase of immigrant students in U.S. schools has provoked a high level of public debate over the impact of immigration on schools and the role of schools in immigration assimilation. In chapter four, the authors discuss ambivalent public attitudes, federal resource policy, and language and immigration politics, such as California’s Proposition 227, and their impact on the education of immigrant youth.

In chapter five, the authors closely examine the organizational barriers that prevent secondary schools from meeting the educational needs of LEP students. These include the isolation of language development professionals and mainstream subject teachers, lack of extended planning and instruction time as well as collaboration time for teachers, and educators’ lack of understanding of immigrant parent involvement. The authors report that the core subject teachers in the demonstration schools typically believe that literacy and language development of LEP students is “not my job” (p. 60). Furthermore, the language development program is considered “remedial” and “not part of the normal function of the secondary school” (p. 60). Both mentalities hinder the goal of effectively preparing immigrant youth for mainstream classes. Many teachers working with LEP students often describe their efforts as a “race against an unforgiving calendar” (p. 61) — even the most motivated immigrant student needs more time than currently allotted to acquire the language skills to participate fully in mainstream content area classes. The fact that teachers work in isolation in many secondary schools also impedes the improvement of curricular and teaching approaches. Finally, miscommunication between teachers and parents can hurt immigrant students’ schooling. In many cases, teachers’ expectations of immigrant parents’ involvement do not take into consideration cultural differences, parents’ schedules, and language barriers.

Chapter six extends this analysis, examining the challenges faced by educational reformers who are trying to increase school accountability for the educational outcomes of LEP immigrant youth. The authors point out that accountability systems in programs serving immigrant LEP youth are generally weak and “at odds” with the educational needs of LEP teens. School leaders in the demonstration sites emphasized that assessment for LEP students remains underdeveloped in many local schools. Many of the tests designed to measure the performance of LEP students are not proven to be reliable. There is also a lack of tests that measure content knowledge in students’ languages of origin, thus for LEP students it is often difficult to distinguish whether the tests measure English skills or content knowledge. The authors suggest that schools need stronger accountability systems, curriculum content standards, and student assessment and performance standards for LEP youth.

In chapter seven, the authors present the strategies adopted by the demonstration projects to help the schools meet the language and literacy needs of LEP students. They provide an overview of the reform elements common to all sites. These include involving everyone (teachers, counselors, administrators, and parents), promoting accountability mechanisms, working to improve the quality of instruction on both language development and core subject classes, and emphasizing sustained long-term professional developmental for all school staff. The authors emphasize that new curricula for late-entering and underschooled immigrant students should be implemented in classes where students can receive sheltered content instruction in the core subjects. For example, in a sheltered history class, English language and literacy development is integrated with direct instruction in history. Teachers may also use more visual aids and employ more group-learning arrangements in the class. In many of the demonstration schools, content area teachers found it helpful to attend professional development workshops to learn basic knowledge on language acquisition, particularly how to provide sheltered instruction in their subjects to make it more comprehensible for LEP students. Chapter eight, the final chapter, synthesizes the authors’ findings, describing the lessons learned from the demonstration projects — how school leaders and reformers can restructure the secondary school to meet the needs of all students, link immigrant education to schoolwide reform, and involve a wide coalition of stakeholders in defining and implementing reform. The authors also offer implications for foundations, the educational research community, and national and state policymakers seeking to support reform.

This report offers a uniquely practical perspective on how secondary schools can better meet the needs of two groups of immigrant students whose numbers are rapidly growing. It is a wonderful resource for schools, educators, and policymakers working closely with immigrant youth, particularly the “overlooked and underserved” LEP students and underschooled teens. Future research should continue to understand how schools, particularly secondary schools, can better meet the educational needs of this rapidly growing student body.

D.B.Q.H.