The New Jersey Board of Education, in an effort to ease a shortage of bilingual teachers, is considering a proposal to relax certification requirements as a way of encouraging more native-English speakers to enter the field.
At the same time, the plan would close a loophole to “bring the large number of bilingual and English-as-a-second-Ianguage teachers presently working under substandard or ‘emergency’ certification up to standards promptly,” according to the architect of the plan, Commissioner I of Education Saul Cooperman.
At the board’s Feb. 5 meeting, Mr. I Cooperman cited the growth of the limited-English-proficient student population in New Jersey, along with recent findings by the state education department that nearly one-third of bilingual and E.S.L. teachers are not fully certified
He argued that the certification changes are essential, along with other recruitment efforts, to “ensure an adequate supply of qualified professionals for the future.”
But the plan has met with hostility from Hispanics, whose children make up about 75 percent of the L.E.P. students served in the state.
“What this is becoming for the Hispanic community is a racial issue,” said Elsa Nunez-Wormack, an English professor and the chairman of the Bilingual Statewide Advisory Board. “They’re saying ‘change the pool’ to bring in more white Anglo-Saxons.”
She added that the proposal runs I counter to educational-reform efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere. “As a minority, we don’t want ‘nonexcellence,’” she said. “We don’t want lowered standards. Why would you better bilingual education by bringing in more white Anglo-Saxons?”
Under Mr. Cooperman’s proposal, teachers in bilingual programs could qualify for “provisional” certificates for up to three years if they met entrance requirements and showed progress toward full certification. E.S.L. teachers would have one year to become fully certified.
”We do not believe that the new requirements will improve bilingual education,” said José Morales, executive director of the Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey. “Our main concern is that bicultural [programs] will no longer carry weigh,” as fewer Hispanic teachers are hired.
‘Guinea Pigs’
José Delgado, a member of the Camden school board, accused Mr. Cooperman of proposing to use language-minority children as “guinea pigs” in the training of English-background teachers with limited oral-communication skills in the students’ language.
Current requirements for bilingual certification including passing scores on the Language Proficiency Interview—an oral examination. Candidates now must earn a score of 4 in the students’ native language and a score of 3 in English.
The proposed change would require the same scores, but drop the language specification. In other words, a 4 in English and a 3 in the native language would be acceptable.
To enter the “provisional teacher program,” minimum scores of 4 and 2 (in either language) would be required, and candidates would have to make progress in coursework offered by colleges or training centers set up by school districts.
‘Alternate Route’
The program would be part of New Jersey’s “alternate route” to certification, initiated in 1983, which is open to college graduates who have not completed teacher-training programs.
Besides the required scores, full certification for both bilingual and E.S.L. teachers would require candidates to pass the National Teacher Examination, a requirement for all New Jersey teachers since September 1985. No test now exists for E.S.L., but state officials have asked the Educational Testing Service to develop one, according to Roger Shatzkin, a spokesman for the education department.
Mr. Delgado predicted that the lowered standards would lead to the hiring of “language majority” teachers who have studied Spanish in college but have limited oral proficiency in the language. “A 2 is very weak,” he said. “It’s not enough to be in the classroom teaching abstract concepts. A 3 is marginal.”
Moreover, according to Mr. Delgado, the N.T.E., which includes a general-knowledge component for elementary teachers, is “culturally biased” against language- and racial-minority teachers.
Ideological Factors?
State education officials, Mr. Delgado charged, are motivated by “ideological” factors, “a feeling that more English should be used in the bilingual classroom. That’s why they want more English teachers.”
“We see nothing wrong with hiring English-speaking teachers to address the shortage of bilingual teachers,” said Richard Dipatri, an assistant commissioner of education. “In fact, it may enhance our efforts to get students to become fluent in English. Many of our bilingual teachers are not as proficient in English as we’d like them to be.”
Mr. Dipatri added that “some students are in bilingual programs for what we believe are an excessive number of years--five, six, seven years. It’s a measure of success to get them out faster. The goal, after all, is to get them to function in an English-speaking society.”
Sylvia Roberts, director of the department’s division of compensatory and bilingual education, declined to comment on whether the certification proposals reflect the department’s dissatisfaction with current bilingual programs.
But Ms. Roberts denied that the new certification standards would lower the quality of instruction for L.E.P. students.
“Current policy places no restrictions on who goes into a [bilingual] classroom,” she said. “So, in a sense, we’re upgrading the requirements. You could go in now and teach without any certification.”
Ms. Roberts acknowledged that the new rules would mean increased hiring of native-English speakers as bilingual teachers. But this will not entail a de-emphasis on bicultural curricula, she said, noting that “we have bilingual teachers in the classroom now whose native language is English and that’s not hurting the bicultural programs.”
Strategies Planned
A variety of other recruitment strategies are being planned, she added. “We’ll broaden the pool by offering services to people who want to become bilingual through language institutes ... by career counseling in colleges, community outreach, reaching down into the high schools with career counseling.”
Mr. Delgado said that more resources should be concentrated on upgrading the skills of native-language teachers, such as instructional assistants now working in bilingual programs. The Camden school board hopes to contract with Glassboro State College for a $65,000, three-year program to train 20 to 25 of these aides.
Camden school officials would like to attract state funding, he said, “but I’m sure that the commissioner would say no to something like this. He’s hoping to put more Anglo teachers in the classroom. But I really don’t see a large population out there, especially for Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Portuguese. How many colleges in New Jersey even teach these languages?”
New Jersey schools served 35,687 L.E.P. students in 1984-85, up about 6 percent from three years earlier, according to Mr. Shatzkin. Meanwhile, bilingual programs are multiplying more rapidly, he added, with districts initiating 25 last year, as compared with 13 the year before.
The state board plans to hold public hearings on the proposed changes in certification requirements and is expected to vote on the changes at its May meeting.
Stiffer Fluency Test
In a related initiative, Mr. Cooperman has proposed a passing score on the state’s English-fluency test that critics regard as unrealistically high. Of 349 language-minority 12th graders who took the test last fall, two-thirds failed, according to Ms. Nunez-Wormack, the chairman of the state bilingual advisory board.
The exam, known as the Maculaitis Assessment Program, was adopted last June. Beginning with the class of 1987, it is scheduled to become a graduation requirement for L.E.P. students who entered New Jersey schools after the 8th grade and cannot pass the state’s regular basic-skills test.
“The goal of the L.E.P. graduation policy,” said Ms. Roberts, “is to make sure that these students have mastered the basic skills and can read, write, speak, and understand English at levels that will enable them to function in an English-speaking society.”
At its Feb. 5 meeting, Mr. Cooperman asked the state board for a two-year delay of the requirement to I give teachers and administrators added preparation time. “Districts have had less time to prepare their L.E.P. students for the graduation test than they have had to prepare the general student population” for new requirements scheduled to take effect with the class of 1989, he said.
Ms. Nunez-Wormack said she feared the board would reject the delay, while approving Mr. Cooperman’s recommendation for a passing score of 133 out of 199. This would mean, she said, that a student who has been exposed to English for as little as one year must score just 10 points below the median score of 143 for native English-speaking students.
Standards Criticized
She also criticized the use of the same standard for all L.E.P. students, regardless of their time in the United States. Mr. Cooperman rejected the idea of a sliding scale, based on length of time in New Jersey schools, recommended by an advisory committee on the Maculaitis test.
“The impact on the dropout rate will be tremendous,” Ms. Nunez-Wormack said, discounting the idea that students would return for another year of high school merely to pass the English-fluency test.
Ms. Roberts said the department has yet to analyze the results of its experiments with the exam based on students’ years in American schools. But she added that the sliding-scale proposal was ruled out because “our policy is that we are helping the student by making sure he learns to speak English, the language he will need in higher education and in the marketplace.”
