NEW YORK TIMES

JULY 15, 1998

More English Instruction Sought for Bilingual Pupils

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

NEW YORK -- With new graduation standards requiring all high school students to pass a rigorous English examination, state education officials are now proposing longer, more intensive English classes for students with limited English skills.

The proposal, released on Tuesday by the state's education commissioner, Richard Mills, would require those students, from kindergarten through high school, to spend two or three of their eight school periods in English. Currently, the 225,000 students in the state with limited English skills are required to spend only one 35-minute period a day learning the language. Many spend the rest of their school day in classes taught in their native language.

The measure, which requires the approval of the seven-man state Board of Regents, is intended to address two problems: helping bilingual students meet the higher graduation standards and improving the way bilingual education is carried out.

"I want youngsters who don't yet speak English to speak English," Mills said on Tuesday in an interview. "I want them to pass the exams. I want them to have every opportunity that every other child has."

Bilingual programs are one of the most contentious matters of educational policy, and they have come under renewed focus in recent months because of California's overwhelming public vote to end such classes and immerse students in a year of intensive English.

But where critics of California's bilingual programs cited study after study attacking bilingual education as trapping students in a language nether world where they master neither English nor their other subjects, Mills, in his proposal, cited evidence showing how students' mastery of their native language actually helps them learn English.

Under Mills' proposal, students would have to take additional hours of English, so they could be integrated into mainstream English classes within three years. In New York City, home to a majority of the state's students with limited English, that does not always happen: Currently, a third of the city's bilingual students, particularly older ones, take longer than three years. Students with limited English also take longer to graduate than their peers, and a greater share of them drop out of high school. The Education Department did not estimate how much the proposal might cost or how many extra teachers would need to be hired.

Bilingual education advocates Tuesday expressed cautious support for the proposal, saying that they applauded the goal of teaching English more thoroughly but worried that students would get short shrift in other academic subjects.