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**EqualEducational Opportunity for Hispanic Students in the Oklahoma City Public Schools**

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**Chapter2**

**AcademicPerspective**

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Dr.Herman Curiel, associate professor, School of Social Work, University ofOklahoma, provided the Advisory Committee some information on the educationaland social needs of Hispanics in Oklahoma. As background, he noted that theOklahoma City public schools have a diverse minority student population, whichis 40 percent African American, 35 percent white, 16 percent Hispanic, 4 percentAmerican Indian, and 3 percent Asian.[1] In 1997, 74 percent of thedistrict�s students were eligible for either free or reduced price lunch. Ofthe 6,621 Hispanics enrolled, 4,324 were eligible for free lunch. Also in thesame year, 5,739 students were enrolled in special education and 1,786 studentdropouts were recorded for the district.[2]

TheOCPS, which serves the inner city and other needy areas, is 1 of 17 schooldistricts in the Greater Oklahoma City area.[3]The ethnic imbalance of the student population does not reflect the city�spopulation. For example, Oklahoma City is 16 percent African American and around4 or 5 percent Hispanic.[4]

Dr.Curiel said that the school district has experienced a tremendous enrollmentgrowth of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students. He reported that in the1997�98 academic year 6,542 students were identified as LEP. For a majority ofthese children, the home language was Spanish.[5] 

Dr.Curiel said 540 Hispanic students were enrolled in special education classes.[6]He described the Even Start Family Literacy program, which is designed toprovide concurrent childhood, adult, and parent education to its participants.It targets low-income families with limited formal education.[7]Most of the families who participate in Even Start are of Hispanic background.The goal of the program was to serve 120 families. However, Dr. Curielrecommended that the school district expand its transitional bilingual educationprogram to grades two and three at the current Even Start sites, and offer thesame program at schools where there is a concentration of LEP students.[8] 

Dr.Curiel stated that bilingual education is often misunderstood by the generalpublic, legislators, and even some educators. It is a teaching method using bothEnglish and a student�s native language and is particularly designed fornon-English-speaking students.[9]He further said:

> 
Criticsview time spent becoming literate in the child�s major language as time lost,because they�re not learning English. The assumption is that all children canprogress at the same rate, regardless of ability to comprehend instruction. Andbilingual education is designed for those students who commence schools asnon-English speakers. The initial goal is for the children to learn to read andwrite what they already speak. So it�s from a position of strength: you teachthem what they already know. And once the children have received some level ofnative language literacy, children are introduced to English.[10] 

Accordingto Dr. Curiel�s research findings on the effects of bilingual backgroundeducation and its relationship to dropout rates in Houston, Texas, many childrenwho do not have the benefit of bilingual education, who are poor, and of Mexicanheritage had to repeat school grades.[11]His research further indicated that children who were in bilingual educationclasses in the early years did well in high school compared with those withoutthe bilingual educational experience, who more frequently became schooldropouts.[12] 

Dr.April Haulman, a professor in curriculum and instruction from the University ofCentral Oklahoma, provided the Advisory Committee with information on Statetesting regulations and exemption from testing regulations. She began by sayingthat there is a requirement for achievement testing in grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and11.[13]However, there was an acknowledged need to exempt students receiving specialeducation. Dr. Haulman said:

> 
Italso was believed by advocates for language minority students at that time thatexemptions should also be extended to protect the limited- andnon-English-proficient students from being assessed with inappropriateinstruments, namely tests standardized and normed on English-speaking students.[14]

Dr.Haulman told the Committee that limited English proficient refers to:

> 
individualswho were not born in the U.S. or whose native language is a language other thanEnglish, individuals who come from environments where language other thanEnglish is dominant. . . . where language other than English has had asignificant impact on their level of English language proficiency and who, byreason thereof, has sufficient difficulty reading, writing, and understandingthe English language to deny such individuals the opportunity to learn successfully in classrooms where the language ofinstruction is English or to participate fully in society.[15]

Studentsin local school districts in Oklahoma may be exempted from the State schooltesting program during their first 3 years of enrollment if the followingconditions have been met:

-  For every LEP student exempted, the local district must have on fileverification that the student is receiving special instruction designed for aspecific purpose of improving the LEP student�s English proficiency.The local school district must have on file record of having notified theLEP student�s parents or legal guardians of the option of requesting thattheir child be exempted from participating in the testing program.[16]
Dr.Haulman stated that the 3-year timeframe for test exemptions was based onresearch findings on how long it takes to learn communication skills.[17]However, she noted: 

Thesetests grossly and unfairly underestimate the LEP student�s cognitivefunctioning and achievement in content areas. A non-English-proficient,limited-English-proficient student will receive a low score on these tests, notbecause they do not know some of the concepts or information on the test butbecause they do not understand the language of the test and test instructions.The test about science concepts should measure science concepts. For LEPstudents, it measures the student�s ability to read the question in English.This process can be a very humiliating, painful, and demoralizing situation forthe student, resulting in low self-esteem and possibly loweredself-expectations. Using these types of tests unfairly underestimates astudent�s progress from one year to the next. Typically, LEP students assessedin English are 25 to 30 percentile ranks behind their English-speaking peers,constituting about two and a half to three grade levels.

Inorder to close this achievement gap as measured by the English instruments, LEPstudents must out-perform their English-speaking peers in progress over thecourse of several years. The LEP student who enters schools 3 years behind inEnglish when measured through these tests must make 15 years of progress; thenormal 12 years of progress plus 3 years of catch-up achievement during the 12years of schooling, whereas English-speaking students are making 12 years�progress in 12 years of schooling. The test scores for LEP students from oneyear to the next shows students making a year�s worth of progress as measuredby a test, but those results would still be way behind their English-speakingpeers. Teachers, on the basis of this, may actually lower their estimation andexpectations for LEP students because of these low scores and thus not providethe same challenging content-area instructions to LEP students.[18] 

Dr.Haulman said that achievement tests are often used as high stakes decisionmakingguides. High stakes refers to the practice of using test results for suchpurposes as grade level retention or advancement.[19]When test results are used for assessing the quality or the performance of aschool district, it sometimes puts pressure on students, teachers, andadministrators. Ultimately, the concern is the resulting educational damage tothe LEP student�s morale and self-image.[20]

Dr.Haulman suggested that schools can be overly sensitive to being labeled at-riskfor low-achievement performance and may actually encourage parents to signwaivers for testing when they are not warranted if they believe that studentswill not perform at the standard levels.[21] 

Oklahomaschool officials were concerned that a 3-year exemption would not be enough forstudents to make adequate progress in their English proficiency. This fear wasbased on research findings indicating that for LEP children, in addition tolearning basic interpersonal communication skills, it may take 5 to 10 years todevelop the cognitive academic language proficiency equivalent of theirEnglish-speaking peers.[22]

Dr.Haulman also mentioned that the funding formula for the school districts offeredby the State Department of Education provided supplemental money based on thenumber of limited-English-proficient students who are reported annually to theState.[23]She was very concerned about the lack of a tracking system for funds set asideto provide additional services for the LEP student. She has advocated for bettermanagement of LEP-targeted funds and better assessment of proficiency inlanguage acquisition and curriculum content in the support program for LEPstudents.[24]

Dr.Haulman said the test exemption was �never intended to release teachers andschools of any accountability for providing English language development, aswell as access to full curriculum.�[25]

Dr.Haulman also pointed out: 

Andthere is some benefit to giving these types of tests for students that arebeginning to make progress, probably not in the early stages of no Englishproficiency, but as they begin to acquire more and more English proficiency,they still may be identified as limited English proficient and may not beachieving at the norms of their English-speaking peers. There could be somebenefit for the teachers and educational planners and for parents to gauge howquickly they are approaching those norms. So there are some advantages to givingthem the test. And when the schools are reluctant to give them the test becausethose figures, then, would be counted against them if they are not achieving atthe norm levels for the rest of the school, they are not being held accountable,often, for the kind of educational programming they can offer the student.[26] 

Whenasked about the pushout and dropout rates for LEP students, Dr. Haulman noted: 

ButI know one of the things that you often hear when you hear bilingual educationbeing under fire like in States like California, you hear that all this moneythat the United States has put into bilingual education after all these years,we still have one of the highest dropout rates among our limited Englishproficient. And why is it? Because it�s failed.

Well,the truth of the matter is that good quality bilingual instruction has neverbeen offered to everybody anyway. And those high dropout rates are stilloccurring among the students that are not receiving quality education. This isone thing that the research has found: students that are receiving nativelanguage support longer, even if they are in the mainstream classes where allthe instruction is English but they receive native language support and there isstill communication in the native language of the home with parent, then kidsare persisting in their education longer.

Parentsare staying involved longer in education. Most parent involvement drops outconsiderably after elementary school anyway. But parents will drop out after thefirst 2 years if there�s nobody to talk to at school. If the teacher doesn�tspeak their language and there�s nobody there to translate, the parents willwithdraw immediately. 

Andwhen you compound that with the fact that many of our limited-English-proficientparents are coming with a different kind of cultural expectation to the school,they�re not as likely to challenge authority or to assert that theirchildren�s rights are not being met, or needs are not being met, because fromdifferent cultural perspectives, teachers are held in higher esteem than theyare in our society, unfortunately. 

Butthe offshoot of that is that parents often will not challenge, even if there issomeone there to translate, because culturally, they have a differentperspective.

Itis so critical that the teachers make an effort to encourage and involve parentsand show them how they can be involved both at the classroom level and at the building level sothat they not only understand their rights as parents, but they understand howthey can enrich their children�s experiences at home. Because when that bondis strong between the home and the school and the child, the children willpersist in school longer.[27] 

[1]        Herman Curiel, Statement before the Oklahoma Advisory Committee to the U.S.    Commission on Civil Rights, community forum, Oklahoma City, OK, Sept. 29,    1998, Transcript, p. 12 (hereafter cited as Transcript).

[2]        Ibid.

[3]        Ibid., pp. 12�13.

[4]        Ibid., p. 13.

[5]        Ibid., pp. 13�14. An Oklahoma City Public Schools evaluation report to    U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Jan. 22, 1998, noted    that 5,485, or 85 percent, of LEP students were Spanish speaking.

[6]        Herman Curiel, Transcript, pp. 13�14. 

[7]        Ibid., p. 15.

[8]        Ibid., pp. 15�16.

[9]        Ibid., p. 16.

[10]        Ibid., pp. 16�17.

[11]        Ibid., p. 17.

[12]        Ibid., p. 20.

[13]        April Haulman, Transcript, p. 78.

[14]        Ibid.

[15]        Ibid., p. 79.

[16]        Ibid., p. 80.

[17]        Ibid., pp. 81�82.

[18]        Ibid., pp. 81�83.

[19]        Ibid., p. 83.

[20]        Ibid., pp. 83�84.

[21]        Ibid., p. 84.

[22]        Ibid., p. 81.

[23]        Ibid., pp. 85�86.

[24]        Ibid.

[25]        Ibid., p. 84.

[26]        Ibid., p. 85.

[27]        Ibid., pp. 100�01.