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Cadillac prices, Chevy results for Oregon ELL

Corvallis Schools

Oregon spends Cadillac prices to teach English Language Learners in its public schools, but only gets Chevy results.  That's because the formula for spending more than 200-million-dollars a year on tens of thousands of students provides an incentive to keep kids in E.L.L. as long as possible. E.L.L. was formerly known as E.S.L.  The Oregon Department of Education is now proposing to make some major reforms. 

When she was in elementary school, this was about the extent of Stephanie Castañeda's Spanish:

"Hola...adios."

Born in Hillsboro, Spanish was not spoken in her home. But she ended up spending seven years as one of the 58-thousand Oregon kids in English Language Learner classes:

"I was always told and I even had a teacher assistant tell me once, it was probably because of my last name."

School districts get 35-hundred-dollars per year extra for each E.L.L. student, providing a possible incentive to channel kids into the program and keep them there. Stephanie's father, Manuel, succeeded in getting her out of the program, but then they moved to a different neighborhood and different school:

"Everything was fine there, so I was happy that this E.S.L. was no longer in the way. But about two months later, she was back in E.S.L. They figure out, okay, here's another one we can put in there."

Oregon public schools chief Rob Saxton has heard the complaints:

"Do we put students in E.L.L. because they have a latino surname and then it means that there's an extra 35-hundred-dollars for the school district, right?  That may have been the case some time ago. Ten, fifteen years ago."

Manuel Castañeda disputes that:

"We have been helping family members and other friends to get their kids out and they're all U.S. citizens, born here, they speak with no accent.  You can find tons of them everywhere."

While schools get extra money for each student in the program, there is no rule saying they have to spend it to teach kids English. Saxton would require schools to spend at least 90-percent of the money given to them for E.L.L. on the program.  He would also set limits: No more than four years of English Language Learning for moderate students and seven years for less advanced students.  The goal is to get them out of the program--and back to their regular classes--faster:

"There's sort of no fire to get that done besides doing right by kids, and so if a district doesn't exit a student, they just continue to get an extra 35-hundred dollars every year even if the student were in E.L.L. status for 13 years...and some are."

While the program does work well  in lower grades in some districts, half the E.L.L. students in high school don't graduate.  Saxton wants to frontload E.L.L.  If a student learns fast and no longer needs extra help, the school can continue collecting that 35-hundred dollars a year to fund the programs for up to seven years.  Jessie Zavala's third grade class is a model for another E.L.L. reform:

(Okay...estamos listos?  Sí!....)

It's part of a dual language program--English and Spanish--at Salem's Grant Elementary School. Dual language is a bright spot in the program and is growing. Saxton wants more of those plus new funding for careet-tech programs for students who are on a path to dropping out. To Eco-Northwest economist John Tapogna, these reforms are essential:

"This is the future of Oregon's workforce. I would say to anybody who intends to live here any appreciable amount of time. If they want to have a solid workforce and a prosperous economy that this is absolutely critical."

The English Language Learners reforms are now before the Oregon Legislature.