Aios Mios! Seattle’s bilingual programs get the smackdown

It’s been a rough week for Seattle Public Schools. An outside review of the district’s program for immigrant students has concluded that it is “one of the weakest the evaluators have ever seen,” and needs a complete overhaul.

Sound harsh? That’s just the beginning. The evaluators called the program “ad hoc, incoherent and directionless” and noted that Seattle essentially throws its English-language learners into regular classrooms before they are ready and without much support.

Fortunately, Supt. Maria Goodloe Johnson welcomed the criticism, calling the report’s conclusions the “hard, brutal facts” that the district needs to move forward, according to the Seattle Times.

So, just how will the district move forward? Well, the 84-page report (issued by the Council of the Great City Schools) has several suggestions:

• Stop pulling students out of class for 45 minutes a day of English instruction, and help them learn English in regular classes in part by providing some instruction in students' native language.
• Create a series of 10 or so "dual-language" magnet programs throughout the city, similar to the one at Concord Elementary.
• Strengthen the academics in the district's Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center — the first school that many older immigrants attend — so that students can learn English and earn the credits they need to graduate from high school. (Students now don't receive credit for the classes they take at the center.)
• Establish a Bilingual Orientation Center specifically for students in grades 6-8.
• Track the progress of students even after they've left the bilingual programs.

I’ve heard most of these suggestions before from OSPI and districts like Spokane who have been relatively successful integrating and bringing their bilingual populations up to speed. This makes me wonder why Seattle, despite the large size of its bilingual student population (nearly 25 percent), is so behind—or as one district staffer put it, “It feels like we’re moving from covered wagons to the electric car.” Zute alor!

One hopes the harsh criticism of the district’s bilingual programming will truly rally effort and brainpower around an issue that is so often dismissed as an insurmountable challenge and swept under the table.