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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (8955)	9/22/2003 11:34:19 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793689

Josh Marshall I am happy that you and John have found Josh. Someone on the left who writes a daily blog rationally. :>)

To: KonKilo who wrote (8955)	9/23/2003 4:13:20 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793689

CALIFORNIA INSIDER Latino caucus v. Latino kids A few weeks ago I opined in this space that the members of the Legislature’s Latino Caucus, obsessed with ethnic identity, are pursuing policies that are damaging to the interests of their own people. We now turn to Exhibit A. Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, chairman of the caucus, has been at war all year with the state Board of Education over how much time immigrant children should be required to study English each day. The state board’s answer: at least as much as native-English speakers, or 2½ hours a day. But Firebaugh argues that devoting that much time to English/language arts studies won’t leave enough time in the day for kids in bilingual education programs to study their core subjects in their native tongue. Now Firebaugh has a bill on the governor’s desk that would force the school board to take his side. At issue is whether California schools will be required to follow the state’s standards in order to participate in the federal Leave No Child Behind program and obtain funds distributed by the feds. The school board, following state laws, says local schools can offer bilingual programs when parents request it, but they’ve still got to teach English to those kids. Firebaugh says ignore the standards and give them the money. He takes this position depsite recent test scores showing that young children in bilingual programs are reaching proficiency on the state’s English and Language Arts standards at a far slower rate than children in other programs. They are the very children who need English instruction the most. Stopping them from getting it, I would argue, is against their long-term interests. Note: This bill, AB 1485, would also roll back an important part of the state’s standardized testing program and weaken California’s commitment to education accountability. The bill was amended in the waning days of the legislative session to eliminate, except for third graders and eighth graders, that portion of the tests that seeks to ensure that California’s standards, and its student performance, are not slipping below national norms. The other part of the test, which measures how well our kids do on our standards in grades two through 11, would remain in place. But the check against national norms is crucial. Even if our students are doing fine on our California-only standards, it’s still vital to know how well they compare nationally. That’s the best check we have against moves to dumb down our benchmarks or change performance standards to make our students’ performance appear better than it really is. sacbee.com