LAUSD, EL's, and scamming the system

[ilbegone]

I heard about this same scam going on in the Inland empire by local school employees.

LAUSD is selling out English Learners to fatten its finances


By Lance T. Izumi Lance T. Izumi is Koret Senior Fellow and senior director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute and the co-author of the 2008 PRI report "English Immersion or Law Evasion: A 10th Anniversary Retrospective on Proposition

11/24/2009

IT recently emerged that many Los Angeles students placed in classes for English-language learners in the early elementary grades were still taking such classes when they entered high school. That's not a knock on the students, but a damning indictment of how government at all levels has sold them out and botched the delivery of English-language instruction.

A USC study found that nearly three out of 10 Los Angeles English-learner students spent years in English-language-instruction courses without ever being re-classified as English fluent. The study didn't address why administrators kept students in English-learner classes for so long. The reasons, however, are no mystery.

Many English learners actually score at the proficient level on the state test used to determine English fluency. In the Los Angeles school district, 45 percent of first-graders taking the 2008-09 test scored advanced or early advanced, the two levels signaling proficient English skills. The state says that scoring at these levels, plus the basic level on the state's English subject-matter test, is sufficient for a student to be re-classified as English fluent. Local school districts, however, are permitted to tack on their own requirements. Thus, Los Angeles also requires that students earn specified grades in subject-matter courses.

Even if students meet both state and local requirements for re-classification, a report by the Bureau of State Audits found many instances of students still not being re-classified as being fluent in English. An amazing 62 percent of students in the bureau's review met state and local criteria for fluent status, but weren't re-classified. This travesty is due in part to the perverse incentives for school districts to keep students classified as English learners and not move them on to English-fluent status.

The state Legislative Analyst's Office has found that districts have a financial incentive for keeping students classified as English learners because federal and state programs distribute funds based on the number of students eligible for those programs. In other words, the more students classified as English learners the more money districts receive from Washington and Sacramento.

Finally, keeping English-fluent students in the English-learner category helps schools meet the adequate-yearly-progress requirements for English learners under the No Child Left Behind act. NCLB requires subgroups such as English learners to make annual progress toward grade-level proficiency in math and English language arts. Keeping English-fluent students in the English-learner category increases the chances that schools will meet federal goals.

The California Department of Education has found that the probability of an English learner being re-classified as English fluent after 10 years in California schools is less than 40 percent. The department attributes this appalling situation to flawed re-classification methods "that likely under-represent success and ignore English learners' progress over time across the spectrum of linguistic and academic performance."

There are two ways to address this problem. One is to change the various laws that create the perverse incentives that keep students in the English-learner ghetto. Even if successful, however, such efforts would require a long and protracted struggle, stunting the academic growth of current English learners for many more years.

A better solution would be to give parents a school-choice voucher that would allow them and their children to exit immediately from public schools in Los Angeles and elsewhere that fail to transition students to English fluency quickly. Parents could then send their kids to private schools that better meet their demand for faster transitions.

The USC study found that students who moved out of English-learner classes by the third grade scored up to 40 points higher on standardized tests than students who remained in those classes. If the public schools want to imprison students in English-learner classes, then vouchers are the keys that could unlock those prison doors for parents and their children.

[Twoller]

Who says we are under any obligation to teach anyone English? If you cannot speak English, you have no reason to be here.

What is really the problem? Their parents don't speak English. What good is public education in the common language when the kids go home and nobody speaks it? Their parents are here because welfare is not allowed to illegals, but it is to "families", the kids of the illegals.

No more government benefits to the children of illegals. No more classes in English as a second language.

[Jeanfromfillmore]

As some of you know I have a close friend who teaches ESL at a community college. She said some of the teachers have been cut, but there are still plenty of classes. She teaches at level 6 and told me last week that she had just found out some of her students were also enrolled in level 7 at the same time. What upset her was that these same students should only be at level 5, but are allowed to enter at just about any class they want and in two classes at the same time.

I asked her if they were paying for the classes. She said probably not, because of the Boag Fee Waver, where they simply fill out a half page form stating they don't make much money. No one really checks to make sure the information is true, they just get the classes for free. She was also angry that many of these same students get free books and supplies, along with other grants. They aren't getting anything out of these classes because the classes are so above their level of understanding, but our tax dollars are paying for them.

She also said that they're dumb as a door knob, and that she's lucky if one or two actually have the cognitive ability to gain from the classes. That was her opinion and she's a liberal through and through.

[ilbegone]

I was told that if one fills out the elementery school enrollment form and checks a box indicating that the head of household didn't have a social security number, everything at school was automatically carte blanc free from meals to tutoring.

I'll have to carefully ask again.

What is the Boag fee waiver?

I had a conversation a couple of days ago with a recent graduate of the UC San Bernardino. I tried to be objective and not ask leading questions.

What I got out of it was that admissions and courses had been dumbed down in order meet the numbers required for "diversity", and that most students shop easy classes and educators who let students slide. My impression is that it is about the same thing could be accomplished with an 8 hour dog and pony "certification" show, an "I now pronounce thee qualified" degree.

I also asked about how some professor's didn't seem to be around enough to actually teach anything, and he told me there was someting like six or eight different classifications of professors, something roughly akin to full time to part time specialists. This might account how some are on the University payroll with department titles, but are always off somewhere else on some "activist" crusade or cranking out high priced agenda laden books.

[Jeanfromfillmore]

I was told that if one fills out the elementery school enrollment form and checks a box indicating that the head of household didn't have a social security number, everything at school was automatically carte blanc free from meals to tutoring.

I'll have to carefully ask again.

What is the Boag fee waiver?

I had a conversation a couple of days ago with a recent graduate of the UC San Bernardino. I tried to be objective and not ask leading questions.

What I got out of it was that admissions and courses had been dumbed down in order meet the numbers required for "diversity", and that most students shop easy classes and educators who let students slide. My impression is that it is about the same thing could be accomplished with an 8 hour dog and pony "certification" show, an "I now pronounce thee qualified" degree.

I also asked about how some professor's didn't seem to be around enough to actually teach anything, and he told me there was someting like six or eight different classifications of professors, something roughly akin to full time to part time specialists. This might account how some are on the University payroll with department titles, but are always off somewhere else on some "activist" crusade or cranking out high priced agenda laden books.

A Boag (I hope I spelled it correctly) is a waver from the state of California that is like a grant and is available on all junior colleges. All your classes are free and there's often a reduction on other things like parking which is also sometimes free. The California taxpayer pays for just about everything with a Boag fee waver. For a full or part time student the cost is usually less than $30 dollars for the semester. That's it. And the illegals fill these forms out first thing.