Beyond NICE

Beyond NICE-Dual Language Programing as Necessity

By D Garcia  and collaborator Eliana Schell-Campos

The School District of Waukesha has offered a Bilingual Education since the 1970s in limited forms.  In 2019, the district celebrates a PreK-11th grade Bilingual Education Program in Dual Language Immersion.  In nearly 50 Years of service to this community, we have shifted our mindsets from "nice to offer, if we can-to necessary as a right to access an education".

For those of you new to the concept of a Bilingual Education, let's review quickly the goals of our programing.  A Bilingual Education in Waukesha ensures that students receive instruction (ie. access) and attainment of the following outcomes:

1. Bilingualism and Bilingual Literacy, that is students are competent in both Spanish and English speaking and robust literacy

2. Academic Access and Achievement across the curriculum in and through both Spanish and English.  This means all content areas are offered in both English and Spanish, with the opportunity to transfer content learned in one to language in the other.

3. Global and Multicultural Competency, an afterthought in many bilingual programs but a strength in Waukesha in that students develop a critical lens around identity, power, discovery, investigation and more.  Our students graduate prepared to investigate the world, communicate with diverse audiences, and challenges their own and other's perspectives.

Why is this work, Beyond NICE?  It is not just "nice" to teach children to speak Spanish, nor a convenience we offer, any more than it is NICE that kids have access to become learners-it is required.  Today, I'd like to share some data on our English Learning Spanish Speakers that help us as a community to understand the critical importance of our Bilingual Programing.  The data I share is a glimpse of the opportunity that emerges from participation in Bilingual education, and not an exhaustive celebration of all of the work.  But let's start first with the impact of 4K on this cohort of students as excerpted from a case study conducted by Eliana Schell-Campos, she writes, 

"Data collected from the case study conducted on School District of Waukesha outcomes for current second grade Dual Language Learners (who are English Learners), reveal that those who participated in the district's 4K Dual Language, are outperforming the peers who did not have access to that programming at the start of their schooling.  On second grade outcomes for reading achievement as measured by PALs, current 2nd grade Dual Language Learners who participated in 4K DLL were 95% proficient in all domains of Spanish Literacy, whereas the peer group who did not or could not access Dual Language 4K it were 75% proficient in Spanish Literacy as Second Graders. As we widely accept that literacy in one language transfers to literacy in the second language (Jim Cummins, 2005) we can see the appearance of a gap linked to how a student starts their educational path.  In addition to the PALs data on these two subgroups, local data on Rigby Running Records, tells the same story.  2nd graders who participated at 4K DLL students were 85% proficient while non participating peers were 72% proficient in Spanish.  

Perhaps most shocking is the data on math achievement. These two cohorts of students, 2nd graders who participated in Dual Language 4K and 2nd grade Dual Language participants who did not, reveal continued gaps in access and achievement in math as measured by MAP.  53% of the 2nd grade DLLs who participated in 4K were above the 50th percentile in math achievement, in contrast to 33% of the compare group who did not access 4K DLL. Surprisingly, English Language development follows the same pattern. 2nd grade students who participated in Dual Language 4K were 81% on track to English Proficiency within 6 years, whereas the comparison group who did not access Dual Language 4K were 69% on track towards English Proficiency.  Given the local data of this school district, it appears that Dual Language 4K is a significant method of ensuring academic achievement with outcomes that are showing potential to prevent the gap that opens for students when they lack access to quality Dual Language Early learning."

In addition to these successes reported by Schell-Campos, we see successes in our students English Language development via the ACCESS test for English Learners 2019.  The ACCESS test is a test of academic content and English Language Development-it is not only a test of English language.  The ACCESS test helps us to know our impact on students academic development while they are learning English and gives us valid and reliable insights into the cognitive academic skills students have in English and where we need to support next.  Since 2017, the ACCESS test has been aligned to state and federal academic Standards and as such case serve as a barometer for how well students are or have been accessing content and cognition. English learners in the State of Wisconsin are required to become proficient as a result of our instruction after 6 years of participation in programing (Bilingual, ESL or No Programing).  This means an incoming 5K students is expected to be prepared for proficiency by grade 6. Typically, our achievement in this area has revealed a rate of 10% proficiency annually, that is until this year. This year we celebrate that 44% of our 5th grade English Learners at Banting Elementary will leave 5th grade Proficient in English for Academic and Social Purposes. Blair is celebrating the graduation of over 30% of their 5th grade English Learners with Proficiency, and both Bethesda and Heyer at 19% English Proficient.  This information is critical. What this means is that students can become bilingual and biliterate, maintain and develop Spanish Literacy and Spanish Academic Access without the fear that "they won't learn English". We have never had a control group of Spanish Speaking English Learners who do not participate in Dual Language until very recently. As parochial school attract more of these students, students who are Spanish speaking and English Learning-we can certainly see the impact of the strategy "More English, More Better".  The control group learning outside our district are not only woefully demonstrating inaccessibility to grade level learning-we also know these students opportunity for Bilingualism and Biliteracy is totally dependent upon home and community access, as these are not opportunities as school. Sadly, data on these students reveals 0% reclassification as English Proficient in any grade.

The opportunity to attend a school district that is dedicated to supporting and developing an essential component of identity, language and cognition, is  profoundly recognized by our 11th grade AP Dual Language Seminar students. Students thank their first teachers, their parents, but maturely understand that it has been "nice" to have had a Bilingual education opportunity, one that has been so vital to becoming "scholars".  These students have participated in rigorous AP Spanish, AP Spanish Literature and now the countries first AP Dual Language Seminar. These scholars will join the nearly 200 Waukesha students who have earned the State of Wisconsin Seal of Biliteracy and Global Education Achievement Certificate.  These students are forever changed by choices we have made in programing for them, ones we might still consider "nice" to have. As data emerges on these students access to academics (ACT), what I am confident we will see is that Dual Language Programing is beyond NICE, it is necessary!