01/06/2012
National Public Radio notes the increase of Spanish-speaking kiddies in southern states and the pressure their language diversity has made on schools.
Unsurprisingly, the liberal radio network assumes the advisability of bilingualism where Spanish is accepted as a co-equal language in America. Spanish education will âhelp create the next generation of bilingual doctors, executives and teachers,â the report states.
Earlier waves of immigrants received no special educational programs with credentialed bilingual instructors, but were expected to learn English by hearing it from their teachers.
NPRâs report focuses on the small Mississippi town of Vardaman, population 1300, where nearly half of the elementary school students are Spanish speakers.
There is no mention of the cost of educating so many foreign children or the immigration status of their farmworker parents. (A report elsewhere observes the routinely high level of pregnant teens and dropouts in high school among the hispanics.)
The linked story includes an audio file of the radio version:
Rise In Spanish Speakers Has School Trying To Adapt, NPR, January 4, 2012
Year over year, the number of Spanish-speaking kindergarteners at Vardaman Elementary School in northeast Mississippi has been on the rise.
Census numbers show the South has the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the country. Now, Vardaman Elementary is about to become Mississippiâs first predominantly Latino primary school, and thatâs posing special challenges when it comes to finding teachers who can help Spanish-speaking students adapt to the American classroom.
Vardaman Takes Its Own Approach
Resources are scarce in the schoolâs small farming community of Vardaman. But of the townâs approximately 1,300 residents, at least one-third are Hispanic â and that number is growing.Over at Vardaman Elementary, many of Angela Barnetteâs second-grade students are American-born, but close to half are also native Spanish speakers. Itâs a language Barnette doesnât speak, but she does her best to encourage it. She says she often picks books with English and Spanish words to read to the class.
âThey love it when they see the teacher who canât speak [Spanish],â Barnette says. âIt makes them feel special that they can say those words and the others canât. They love that.â
Across the country, debate continues over how best to teach English-language learners. Some states, like Arizona, have English-immersion policies mandating that no Spanish be spoken in the classroom. Other states, such as Texas, use a bilingual approach. Mississippi leaves it up to individual districts to determine the best method.
The âCyclical Issueâ Of Bilingual Education
Vardaman Elementary Principal Pamela Lee says a big concern for her is finding bilingual instructors.âI had one position for a certified teacher open last year and I interviewed 10 people,â Lee says. âNo one in that pool of 10 people was bilingual.â
Teachers are already in short supply in Mississippiâs rural areas, and Lee says a starting salary of less than $30,000 makes it even harder to recruit bilingual educators.
She says she ultimately filled the opening with a non-bilingual teacher. After all, Mississippi doesnât actually require schools with Spanish speakers to employ bilingual instructors.
Education researcher Megan Hopkins says thatâs a problem.
âBilingual instruction isnât valued, so teachers are not pursuing that credential,â Hopkins says. âMy work shows that likely, [as] we have fewer and fewer [bilingual instructors], that may not be a good thing for kids.â
Hopkins, who studies at Northwestern University, says schools need Spanish-speaking educators to help create the next generation of bilingual doctors, executives and teachers.
âItâs sort of a cyclical issue,â she says.
Working To Meet Demand
Annie Anderson is Vardaman Elementaryâs one bilingual teacher, and as the Hispanic population has grown, so have her responsibilities. Her job is to improve the English of every Spanish-speaking student at the school, which means coaching 170 students one by one through their English assignments every week.Itâs a big job for one person, and it has educators worrying that if they canât find more bilingual teachers like Anderson, Mississippi schools will just fall further behind.
