Bilingual Education

More Trained Bilingual Teachers are Needed 2

Last Updated Oct 5, 2008 06:15 AM

Shortage of Qualified Teachers
As noted previously, there is not a proportionate representation of minority and bilingual education teachers when compared to those student populations in U.S. schools. One factor that contributes to this is the number of college degrees conferred upon minorities.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the population count in 1994 was 260,372,000. Minorities comprised 26.1 percent of the population (1997). Of a total 1,165,973 bachelor's degrees awarded in 1994, only 17 percent were granted to minorities, and 13 percent of master's degrees were awarded to minorities. In the field of education, minorities earned only 10.7 percent of the total number of bachelor's degrees and 13.1 percent of the total number of master's degrees awarded (Carter and Wilson, 1997).

White students earned college degrees at a rate that is somewhat consistent with their proportion of the population. They comprised 74 percent of the population in 1994 and received 80 percent of the bachelor's degrees and 75 percent of the master's degrees during that year. However, the percentage of bachelor's and master's degrees earned in 1994 falls well below each ethnic group's proportion of the population among all minority groups, except for Asian and Pacific Islander students.

Furthermore, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), fewer public schools offer bilingual education programs. This decline has taken place over a period of seven years from 1987 to 1994: 20.0 percent in 1987-88, 18.8 percent in 1990-91, 17.8 percent in 1993-94 (Henke, 1996).

However, as the number of bilingual education programs has been decreasing over the years, the number of students qualified for these programs has continued to increase. In 1994, 39 percent of all teachers had LEP students in their classes, yet only 28 percent of the teachers with LEP students received any training for teaching LEP students (Henke, 1997). For the 2.1 million LEP students in classrooms across the nation, the majority received daily instruction from an individual who had not been properly trained or certified to teach them.

In Texas in 1995-96, minorities comprised 54 percent of the student population. Hispanic students accounted for 37 percent of the total number of students. Of the 70,064 student increase from 1993-94 to 1995-96, 71 percent of students were Hispanic (TEA, 1997).

Of the 3.7 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, only 11 percent were enrolled in bilingual education or ESL programs (TEA, 1997).

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) reports that in the same year, 240,371 teachers comprised 52 percent of the total staff count. Approximately 23.9 percent of these teachers were minorities: 8 percent were African American, 15 percent were Hispanic, 76 percent were White, and 1 percent were classified as "other." There were 16,826 teachers assigned to 411,429 students enrolled in bilingual and ESL programs across the state in 1995-96 (TEA, 1997). While this is equivalent to about a 24-to-1 student-teacher ratio, these numbers are problematic because the distribution of teachers is not consistent with the distribution of students enrolled in bilingual and ESL programs.

IDRA senior research associate, Roy Johnson, gives an example of the demand for bilingual education teachers in Texas:

1,200 new bilingual certified or endorsed teachers will be needed per year over the next few years to staff the state's bilingual education classes. Over the last five years, a total of 2,177 bilingual endorsements have been issued (1993).
This reflects an average increase of only 435 per year, about one-third of what is needed.

Moving Toward Equity for All Students
Despite the legislation that exists to provide public school students with equitable educational opportunities, that ideal has yet to be realized for low-income, minority and language-minority students. While some monies are allocated to fund educational services for these students, success has not yet been achieved for two primary reasons.

The first reason is that the money designated to educate special population students is not adequate. Millions of students enrolled in public schools are considered to be at risk because of their parents' socio-economic status or their limited English ability.

The second reason is that these monies alone cannot solve the inequities that exist. Of course, improving the learning environment and providing students with the necessary resources to learn (e.g., textbooks, adequate facilities) is a necessary and positive thing. However, even in a perfectly furnished classroom, students cannot learn effectively unless they are provided with an individual who is knowledgeable in the curriculum and properly trained to teach LEP students. Along with the need for more bilingual education programs in the country's public schools, the quality of existing programs needs very much to be improved.

We are experiencing a steadily growing population of minority students in public schools. This poses a challenge. We must seriously consider how we can appropriately educate the soon-to-be majority population of minority students. We must consider the factors that facilitate successful school participation for all students. We must consider better ways to provide all students with the necessary resources and tools for learning. We must demand that every student be placed in a healthy learning environment where he or she receives instruction from an individual who is trained.

Equity is merely a concept. It requires desire, will power, commitment and hard work to be realized. We have talked about equity in educational opportunity for far too long. Until we, as a nation, decide that we really want to achieve equity for all children, we will continue to neglect millions of students who enter public schools each year.

See also Bilingual Education 623 1 - 10