New Money for English Language Learner Students

Andrew Friedman

New Money for English Language Learner Students

Notwithstanding the fact that there are over 140,000 English Language Learner (ELL) students in the New York City public schools, these students have not received the attention or resources they need to succeed academically. They constitute over ten percent of the student population, but they have been treated as a special interest and an after-thought.

In a very positive development, though, the Mayor announced last Thursday that the Department of Education will invest tens of millions of new dollars into providing money and support for schools with high ELL student populations. This will enable schools to provide the programs and academic supports these students need to succeed.

It simply would not have happened without the forceful advocacy work of the New York Immigration Coalition and the support of the UFT, the Coalition for Education Justice, the Working Families Party and many others. At the press conference last Wednesday, a mother named Irania Sanchez put it best when she said,

As an immigrant mother, I am celebrating a big step forward for immigrant children, immigrant families and immigrant communities. For the first time, the Department of Education of New York City is recognizing that students who are in the process of learning English require particular programs and support to succeed in school. Also, they are committing to invest millions upon millions of additional dollars to pay for these programs and supports. Importantly, the DOE also has committed to creating real accountability for schools about how they spend this new money.
The result of these agreements and commitments is simply that our children will now have a better chance to realize their dreams and actualize their capacity. As an activist, and as a mother, I could not feel more proud.

Comments

While I think the agreement reached between progressive groups and Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein may be a good one, we will have to watch like hawks. The Mayor's press announcement on English Language Learner money was a lot vaguer than Andrew Friedman's above. It stated "The Department of Education will significantly increase the weights for English Language Learners to reflect the specific challenges these students face. The Department will ensure that English Language Learners with low academic achievement will receive additional support." I cannot tell whether that means more money, less money or the same for ELLs. Can you?

You are right to be skeptical.

I was in the negotiations, and the Administration explicitly promised, in writing, significant new money. They money will be targeted towards the ELL students who need the most support, but all schools with ELL students stand to gain additional resources to provide the academic programs that ELL students need to succeed.

Although it is refreshing to see that the Mayor is making ELL a fiscal priority, allocating funding is a necessary but insufficient solution to the challenges facing these students. A more comprehensive approach, perhaps modeled on the City Council's Middle Task Force, is needed to assess why the NYC Public School system fails to meet the needs of the ELL population.

A real response to this issue must take into account how schools are designed to interface with parents, as well as the shortage of qualified ELL teachers. Finally, NYC must lobby State and Federal officials to develop testing standards that make sense for our ELL students. These standards should ensure that our schools are incentivized to hold ELL students to the same level of excellence as their native-English speaking peers.