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Advocates Push for Changes to Bilingual Education in Connecticut

Credit Chion Wolf / WNPR
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WNPR
Robert Cotto, Jr., of Trinity College.

The population of English language learners in Connecticut has increased by nearly 50 percent in the past ten years. According to the data, these students are falling behind. 

With graduation rates at 60 percent, advocates say that we could be doing a much better job teaching ELL students English, and incorporating their native languages into classrooms. 

Robert Cotto,Jr., Director of Urban Educational Initiatives at Trinity College, said on WNPR's Where We Livethat there is very little continuity between school districts when it comes to bilingual education. "It ends up being a hodgepodge," he said, "where in some schools you may have a dual language approach... and on the other hand, you may get nothing."

A boy listens to a story in a bilingual classroom in Washington, D.C.
Credit U.S. Department of Education
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U.S. Department of Education
A boy listens to a story in a bilingual classroom in Washington, D.C.

School districts in Connecticut are required to have 20 ELL students before they can get funding from the state, and it takes a year for an instructor to be put in place and for the school to get money. Students are limited to 30 months in the program. 

Cotto said this isn't enough. "The principle is, can the students access the curriculum?" he said. "If you look at No Child Left Behind, for instance, it says kids are supposed to be taking tests or assessments in the form and language that is most appropriate to them. Connecticut is not doing that."

A student works in a bilingual classroom in Washington, D.C.
Credit U.S. Department of Education
/
U.S. Department of Education
A student works in a bilingual classroom in Washington, D.C.

A Trinity College report found that families that have bilingual children are underrepresented in the magnet school application process in Hartford.

Another report authored by Connecticut Voices for Children found that this is happening throughout the state. Choice schools tend to have a much smaller percentage of ELL students, who tend to be concentrated in neighborhood schools. 

For example, Hartford's Burns Latino Studies Academy had 258 ELL students in the 2011-12 school year. Roughly the same number of ELL students attended all 17 charter schools in Connecticut combined, around 270. 

Burns Latino Studies Academy in Hartford.
Credit Hartford Public Schools
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Hartford Public Schools
Burns Latino Studies Academy in Hartford.

"We can't create a school choice system where the schools don't have ELL students, and compare them to a neighborhood school that has the overwhelming number of ELL students," Cotto said. "It is not a fair comparison. We're putting more resources into the school choice programs, and in some ways neglecting the schools that have their lions share of these students."

Credit Chion Wolf / WNPR
/
WNPR
Orlando Rodriguez of the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission.

Orlando Rodriguez, Associate Legislative Analyst at theLatino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said English language learning is at the top of their list of priorities for this legislative session.

The LPRAC policy agenda includes eliminating the 20-student minimum for districts to get funding; getting that funding to districts quicker than the one year it now takes; and allowing students to get up to 60 months of ELL instruction, double the current limit.

Rodriguez said they also want to do a better job of capturing the financial information of individual districts, and find out how much each is spending on bilingual education. "What we're really trying to do is to get people first of all aware of this problem. It's really under the radar," he said. 

The Connecticut Mirror created helpful town-by-town infographics on the number and percentage of English Language Learners by district, and numbers of ELL teachers and students. That's part of a larger report on Education, Diversity and Change in Fairfield County.

Catie Talarski is Senior Director of Storytelling and Radio Programming at Connecticut Public.

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