Templar: ELL problems go beyond funding

Arizona schools chief Tom Horne had just spent two hours crossing swords with local district superintendents over the future of education for the state's 138,000 students who don't speak English as their first language.

Now, Horne was talking on a cell phone with House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix.

"I just had a chance to battle the forces of the status quo. That was a good feeling," said the state superintendent of public instruction.

Horne had reason to be pleased with himself. He walked into the proverbial lion's den at the state Capitol last week, agreeing to debate some of his most powerful critics about new state mandates for dealing with English language learners. When the debate was over, one point rang clear - Arizona's schools have failed at least as badly as state officials in looking out for the best interests of ELL students.

In the past, most of the attention to this issue has been about funding. The Arizona Department of Education says school districts need an additional $40 million to carry out new state mandates that arose out of a federal lawsuit. School districts say the actual cost is closer to $300 million.

But last week's debate revealed the criticism from school districts focuses as much on the mandates themselves as it does on the lack of funding. For the first time, school districts will have to separate ELL students from their classmates for four hours each day for intensive teaching of English as a language. That separation is supposed to end once an ELL student has learned enough English to understand instruction in other subjects, which the state says should happen within two years.

This change has huge implications for how schools are organized. For example, nearly one of every seven students in the Mesa Unified School District will be involved, according to Superintendent Debra Duvall.

Duvall and other superintendents said during the debate that the state is pushing the mandate too quickly and is refusing to acknowledge questions about creating a "separate but equal" situation with civil rights implications.

Horne deftly countered these complaints by pointing out that no Arizona school district has been successful in quickly lifting up ELL students. State research shows most of these children have gotten little special attention for their language problems, and the typical student may take up to 10 years to match their classmates in understanding English.

"Something is being done very, very wrong," Horne said. "It should not take up to 10 years.... That's practically your whole school career. When are you going to learn the substance? ... That is a fundamental fact that we have to deal with and we absolutely must change."