French Immersion II

My first article on FI resulted in quite a few responses –some publicly as blog comments, the majority private emails.

A number of responses from those who view FI as a problem claimed I was out of touch with current issues. That the issues which motivate their concerns are different, and of recent vintage, from what I enumerated. Leaving aside the fact that I noted I hadn’t yet addressed all the topics, this claim rather quickly runs up against hard reality. Each of these “outdated” accusations against FI has been repeated in letters to the Times (Milton version), on a blog, and in emails to me. They continue to be part of a cacophony of complaints of varying degrees of legitimacy.

Before addressing some of these other topics, a word about language immersion. It’s occurred to me over the last months from comments made by many people, even supporters of FI, that Immersion is not understood. For example, here’s a provocative statement for you: French Immersion is not a language subject. Sound crazy? It’s completely true. An immersion program is a content based method of instruction in which core curriculum content is taught in the target language instead of in English. The focus of the classes in FI is identical to English classes. The goal is to learn the same basic elementary school skills in language, math, science and social science. The foreign language is simply the language of instruction.

The language is learned as a by-product of content instruction. Immersion is aptly named. It’s like being immersed in water as a means of learning to swim, with protections and proven methods to guide the student to success. The student focuses on deciphering the content of the teacher’s verbal presentation and written instruction. Gradually competence and confidence are gained. When English is introduced after a couple of years, all the content and basic literacy learned in French are transferred to English.

So when I hear comments such as, “maybe the money spent could be better invested somewhere else”, or that “during this budget season, everything including French Immersion is on the table”, I’m confronting statements emanating from a lack of understanding about the program. Putting French Immersion “on the table” makes no more sense than saying we’re putting English on the table. Educationally, Immersion is a world class investment. For the same dollar spent in English, students learn the same basic curricula while acquiring a fundamental level of understanding of a foreign language unobtainable by any other method of language instruction.

So what are the “current” concerns?

1. The FI program has fewer students of color and fewer boys. Consequently, the English program has a very high percentage of boys and a much higher percentage of African American students.

2. The FI Immersion has far fewer special needs students.

3. The FLES program has been cut, a move viewed as unfair to the English program.

The racial and gender disparities in the make up of the two programs exist, although they are sometimes exaggerated. It occurs, but for rare exceptions, as a consequence of choices made by parents of the students. For this reason alone, outlandish charges of segregation ought to be dismissed.

For the record, here are the approximate three year averages reported by Principal John Drottar’s evaluation team to the School Committee.

Gender

French---------------Girls 57%--------Boys 43%

English--------------Girls 43%--------Boys 57%

Race

French---------------White 85%-------Non-white 15%

English--------------White 70%-------Non-white 30%

SPED

French----------------5%

English---------------24%

Class Size

French----------------20

English---------------22

Two possible implications of this free choice result deserve attention. Do the differences in the makeup of the two programs detract from the educational quality of the English program, as apparently many FI opponents believe? And, irrespective of the answer to that question, wouldn’t it be better for the overall social education of students to have a better mix in both programs?

Let’s begin with some basics. Both programs spend the same amount of instructional time across language arts, math, science and social studies. I won’t deal here with whether the FLES classes constitute a full exposure to the core curriculum. Both programs use the same math curriculum, including the same textbooks. Both programs use the same science kits, with the French teachers providing necessary translations. The social studies program is also virtually identical. So both programs focus on the same content. The difference rests with the method of transmission. The French program transmits content through the French language, the English program through the English language. The only inevitable difference in educational outcome is the superior foreign language skills of those in FI.

Now I don’t expect anyone would seriously argue that the small differences in class size or gender composition create a poorer learning environment for English students. Class size changes from year to year and we’ve gone through periods when both programs have had larger classes. Yes, these are averages and there are statistical outliers, the odd class here or there with a substantial number of students. But that can be dealt with, and ways to do so are already being discussed. While the gender disparities are noticeable, there is no reason that even larger differences would detract from educational quality. As it is, there are a substantial number of boys in FI and girls in English.

I won’t even discuss, for what I hope are obvious reasons, the purely theoretical implication that the number of students of color in a classroom could impact educational quality.

Which brings us to special needs. The SPED compositions of 5% in French and 24% in English need some adjustment. Students in the French program are evaluated later than those in English, creating a slight undercount. In English, some of the SPED students receive instruction outside the standard classes. Even after making slight adjustments for these factors, the current classroom mix is troubling. We should look carefully at any instructional issues this might present, for both student populations.

And then there is FLES. Many parents are outraged about the cuts to this program. None that I have heard has offered other cuts they would make to fund it. Some kind of equivalency between FLES and FI has been suggested, with some even claiming that cuts to FLES should be accompanied by cuts to FI. No such equivalency exists. The FI program is a complete academic program which does everything the English program does and more. It teaches the core curriculum. It is a program of choice. FLES is a language course. It is a required subject for all English students whether they and their parents want it or not. Time devoted to it is taken from time on the core curriculum. It represents an additional cost to the system.

Having said that, I support its continued funding. The importance of foreign language ability grows and we need to offer options for obtaining it. We all need to remember, however, that its funding means cuts system-wide to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars These are likely to come from teachers and non core subjects.

It would be desirable to have a good mix of students in both programs. We could encourage this result if we knew more about the reasons for parental choices. Why do some parents put their sons in English and their daughters in French? Why are parents of students of color and students with special needs more likely to choose English? Answers will create possibilities for eliminating some of the perceptions of risk that may underlie decisions on program choice. Here are some things we should consider doing.

1. We need to do some research. Not a survey sent home to parents, but qualitative research with either in-depth interviews or focus groups permitting the kind of exploration that will uncover more than surface motivations.

2. Public information and education about the Immersion program needs to be greatly improved. Some residents, especially those who have recently moved to town, are unaware of it. Many residents still think of it as a language program. The town of Holliston has offered a FI program for almost a decade longer than Milton. You can find information about it on their school website. Parents of pre-school children need to be educated about the program so that they have an informed choice about possibilities for their child.

3. Rather than maintain a separation of the two tracks unnecessarily, they should be mixed as soon as the Immersion students begin to have certain subjects in English. Principal Drottar’s review team has recommended this.

4. We need to make sure that our capability to service students with special needs in the FI program is every bit as good as in the English program. Access should not be affected by lack of services, or its perception, for the majority of special needs students.

The French Immersion program is not going anywhere. Any attempt to dismantle it would create a backlash with substantial consequences for the town and for support of education in Milton. It would be senseless to harm a program of such value, both educational and financial. The most troubling aspect of the attack waged against it is the complete lack of proposed solutions or changes to address legitimate concerns. The impression quite understandably left is of an agenda to eliminate FI. We need to focus on the issue of inadequate funding, which is a real threat to the educational quality of all programs in the Milton schools. It’s time to move on.

French Immersion

The recent celebration of the foreign language program in the Milton Schools, coincident with the 20th anniversary of the French Immersion program, occurred at a time of growing attacks on that very program.

We’ve been told that FI is elitist; more expensive than the English program; has better books and supplies; has smaller classes; provides an early exposure to foreign languages denied to students in the English program; has never been evaluated; and produces superior academic achievement because it’s more “enriched” and has fewer students with special needs. I’m sure this list is not exhaustive. As the emotions of opponents have grown, so have the claims. And frankly, they tend to get more and more outrageous. A recent blog commentary even concluded that French Immersion doesn’t work!

This proliferation of increasingly dubious assertions has potentially negative consequences. The piling on of perceived slights and inequities suggests an agenda to destroy the immersion program. Unrestrained and unanswered, it risks a counter action by the many supporters of FI, who have to-date exercised admirable restraint. The feared “schism” could then occur. On a more practical level, a grab bag of issues threatens to bury some possibly legitimate concerns that with goodwill could be addressed.

Let’s look at some of the issues.

Elitism

It is a struggle to take seriously a charge of elitism against a program whose members are self-selected on the basis of freedom of choice. In ways the discussion should end right there. No barriers of any kind are placed on enrollment. After all, immersion programs function on the same principles with which all human beings learn their native language. With the possible exception of a sub-set of students with special needs (the research is sketchy) there is no reason why any student can’t succeed in FI.

More Expensive

There has never been any evidence presented that would support this continued assertion. You can teach the core curriculum in French or you can teach it in English. Nothing in the structure of an immersion program necessitates additional costs. Studies done in Canada demonstrate that in most cases immersion is the equivalent cost or less of other programs once it is up and running. Exceptions occur when complex transportation issues arise. Ironically, many who make this claim support a grades 1-6 FLES program which indisputably results in the English program costing more.

Class Size

Class size has always been a major concern of mine, both as a parent and as a Warrant Committee member. I have a child graduate from both the English and French programs. The years they attended the Milton Public Schools constitute the first 16 years of French Immersion. Most of those years the French classes were larger, but occasionally the English classes were larger. Whatever the current state, the fact is relative class size changes from year to year.

A quick search of yellowing Warrant Committee files yielded relative class size data for both programs. For comparison purposes consider that across 4 elementary schools and 5 grades we have 20 grades offering both programs. I have data for 2002 and 2003. Here’s a recap.

10/4/02

Grades in which French classes were larger------------------------11

Grades in which English classes were larger------------------------6

Grades with essentially equal class sizes----------------------------3

10/1/03

Grades in which French classes were larger----------------------12

Grades in which English classes were larger----------------------5

Grades with essentially equal class sizes--------------------------3

The point has been made that enrollment in the English program tends to increase over time because the French program does not accept new students after grade 1, causing all new students to be placed in English. Unfortunately, this fact about “program” size has been misinterpreted as equating to “class” size. It could result in larger class sizes and it could result in smaller class sizes due to the manner in which the number of classes in a grade are determined.

If there are two second grade English classes at Collicot with 21 students each, 6 new students would result in two classes of 24 students. However, if these same two classes had 24 students to begin with, six new students would trigger either the creation of a third class or an effort to transfer a couple of students to another school to keep classes within School Committee guidelines or administration standards. A loss of students in either program can also produce different results.

More on other issues very soon.

An excellent online resource for the study of foreign languages, with information about Immersion and FLES programs, can be found at the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota.

http://www.carla.umn.edu/index.html

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Sustainable Milton Solar Challenge

Sustainable Milton has accepted a Mass Energy Challenge to help the New England Wind Fund. If 300 families from Milton donate $100 or $5 per month for a year to the Wind Fund, Milton will receive a 4 kilowatt solar installation for a town building. Your donation will support increased use of two important alternative energy sources. Although the final deadline for this challenge is April 30, a significant incentive has been offered those who contribute by this Friday, February 15 –the chance to win a one week vacation in Hawaii, with odds the lottery could never offer.

Information about the challenge can be found here:

http://sustainablemilton.org/SolarChallenge.html

Full Day Kindergarten

The educational benefits of full day Kindergarten are generally recognized and seldom challenged.

A substantial body of research indicates that graduates of full day programs enter the crucial first and second grades with more advanced understanding in both language and mathematics and are prepared to capitalize on a rigorous and more fast-paced curriculum. These early gains have been shown to continue into the third grade in some of the most recent research.

For communities trying to address the achievement gap issue, FDK offers more benefits. The research also shows that at risk students enrolled in FDK programs substantially close the gap in educational achievement. This is true for all three segments of this group – language, socioeconomic and racial based.

A program that both raises the level of performance of all, while addressing the needs of those at risk is one we should pay attention to.

Thus, the actions by the Milton School Committee to introduce FDK in Milton is a very positive step. Paradoxically, it could have a negative impact if we’re not careful about its structure and implementation.

The current estimates of the cost of the program is around $400,000. I’m not sure whether that includes the savings to be enjoyed from a likely substantial reduction in the half-day program, which legally we would have to maintain. Funding this out of the current inadequate budget is simply not tenable. The likelihood of receiving additional money for it in this year’s budget, given the state of our finances, is nil. So the School Committee has decided to introduce the program on a fee basis.

Statewide fee-based programs run from $400 per child to over $4,000, with the average around $2600. The sad fact is that many people are not able to afford something like $2600, or possibly more. The Committee is looking at a sliding scale for fees in recognition of this. I hope they arrive at something considerably less than the average for those most in need. It is this very group from which a substantially large proportion of at risk students come. And so the paradox. A FDK program that financially excludes at risk students will turn an opportunity to close the achievement gap into an exercise that increases it, as those able to afford it make increased strides in educational preparation.

First and foremost this type of outcome would be a tragedy for the individual student. It would also create an educational problem down the road for the schools, as additional scarce resources would need to be pinpointed for remediation. This is not likely to be a one or two year proposition. Although we may not be hearing much about it yet, the near term budgetary news is not going to be good. We need to be thinking about how we can keep this from becoming a two-tiered educational system over an extended period of time.

This issue is on the School Committee’s agenda for next Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 7:00 pm.

For research on FDK:

http://cehd.umn.edu/CAREI/Reports/Kindergarten/

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KIVA-ORG

Can you remember the time, just over a decade ago, when critics were pooh-poohing the internet as a phenomenon that really had no practical purpose. Businesses didn’t think they should invest too much into it. Advertisers and agencies couldn’t imagine how they would make money with it. Retailers refused to believe that consumers would ever trust online payment systems enough to conduct commerce with it. The basic freedom of one to one contact seemed like some kind of futurist’s chicken dinner circuit subject matter.

Today, people in the developed world have seen their lives changed by the digital revolution. Corporate America has diverted billions of dollars of marketing expenditures to the world wide web. Information, of varying degrees of quality, are available at the click of a mouse. And commerce is flourishing. We buy books, prescription drugs, clothes, wine, jewelry, and just about anything else you can think of through our web browsers without leaving the house.

Now, thanks to two Stanford graduates, the same technologies are being put to use as a powerful tool for international social involvement.

Kiva.org facilitates mico-loans to start up and very small enterprises in poor regions all around the world. Who are the bankers supplying these loans? People like you and me.

It works like this. Kiva.org has partners in developing countries to identify and vet individuals who have a business idea and need money to realize their dream. The loan requests are usually between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars. Information about the business and owner are displayed on Kiva.org’s website. Using the same kind of online payment systems designed for commerce, individuals from around the world invest in this much needed capital formation. They go to the site, select from number of investment opportunities, and participate by loaning as little as $25. When fully subscribed the loans are made. Periodic reports of the progress of the business are posted online, and the loans are repaid in 10 months to a year.

At that point you return your small amount to your bank account, or invest it in something else. This organization has really begun to take off. In the past week over 13,000 lenders joined Kiva. $800,000 was loaned to almost 1200 businesses. The organization is very upfront about risk, and you can read the extensive information on each loan and region. But for as little as $25 you can help entrepreneurs who have no other resource build their economies one small business at a time. It puts an entirely new, post digital world twist on Tip O’Neill’s aphorism: “All politics is local.”

Check out http://www.kiva.org/

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The 1909 Wing

Check out this YouTube video on the demolition of the old wing of the former High School- to Steely Dan’s _My Old School_. Turn up your speakers!

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=FMmFc46Dkf4