Garcia: Combine Spanish testing, English teaching

Terry Webster

Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000 | 11:31 a.m.

Third grade teacher Jerri Arredondo makes the transition between English and Spanish look easy.

At her chalkboard in Halle Hewetson Elementary School, 701 N. 20th St., Arredondo completes a punctuation lesson in Spanish, then she reads a book to her students in English.

When Arredondo, a bilingual teacher, encourages her students to answer questions about the book in English, some of them excitedly raise their hands with the answer. Some respond in Spanish.

By the end of the year, Principal Donna Mahler says, the students should be doing at least 40 percent of their work in English.

The goal is to have the students fully make the transition to English.

Superintendent Carlos Garcia, who has been on the job for about two months, is now airing his ideas about helping students make that transition.

For starters, Garcia wants the Clark County School District to offer non-English speaking Hispanic students the Spanish version of the TerraNova exam.

The TerraNova is a standardized test used by the Nevada Department of Education to rate schools. Schools that perform poorly on the TerraNova for three consecutive years can be taken over by the state.

"We give a language assessment survey, and what that does is tell us how limited they are in English," Garcia said. "But that's not a standardized test."

Based on the language assessment survey scores, students can be exempted from taking the TerraNova. But Garcia says those students should still be included in standardized testing.

"If they are not taking this test because of language and they are capable of taking another test, then why aren't we giving them that test?" Garcia said. "I think that's something we can work on. And if the state doesn't require it, then maybe it would be good for our school district to at least find out where these students are at."

Part of the problem, Garcia said, is the state has not recognized the Spanish TerraNova as being an equivalent of the English version.

"But the people who developed this test recognize it as the equivalent," Garcia said.

Michael Kean, a spokesman for CTB McGraw-Hill in Monterey, Calif., the publisher of the TerraNova, confirmed that the two tests are designed to parallel each other.

When asked why he thinks the Spanish TerraNova exam is not being used, Garcia said it probably has to do with cost.

Nevada Department of Education officials did not return telephone calls Tuesday.

"In California, when anybody had any kind of bilingual program, we required that they would give (the Spanish version) to see if the kids were learning, whatever language was being taught," said Garcia, the former superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District. "What if we have a fifth grader who just arrived, who may be above grade level but in his primary language? Wouldn't that be important information for us to know?"

Non-English speaking students entering the Clark County School District come from a variety of backgrounds, though most of them speak Spanish, Garcia said.

As the Clark County School District, the nation's sixth largest, continues to grow, so does its population of students with limited or no English skills.

From 1996 to 1999 the number of students entering the school district with no English language skills increased 57 percent from 8,010 to 14,029. The district's limited English language student population went up 58 percent in the same period, from 8,028 to 13,766.

School officials said about 92 percent of those students are Spanish speaking.

In Clark County 20 elementary schools have bilingual classrooms, said Lore Carrera-Carrillo, director of the English Language Learners department.

At the middle and high school levels, the English as a Second Language program is used, Carrera-Carrillo said. In that program, only English is spoken in the classroom, and teachers adapt instruction so that students can understand what is being taught.

Garcia is grappling with the best way to teach non-English speaking students, a struggle exacerbated by a lack of resources.

Despite efforts elsewhere to eliminate bilingual education, Garcia said he supports it. California voters two years ago approved a measure to end bilingual education, and Arizona voters are expected to consider a similar plan in November.

"If I could wave a magic wand, I'd say that every child in Clark County should be at least bilingual," Garcia said. "And I think it would be financially to our advantage to have every child eventually become bilingual. Is that going to happen, realistically? No."

The reason it won't, Garcia said, is that the district lacks the resources to help make it happen.

"If I had enough bilingual teachers with credentials and everything, I would want that," Garcia said. "I can say that I want that, but I don't have the staff to do it."