Suburban Chicago Schools Lag as Bilingual Needs Grow
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The rapid growth of Latino and other immigrant populations in Chicago's suburbs is outstripping the ability of public schools to provide bilingual programs mandated by Illinois, and government financing for the programs is shrinking, state records show.
Of the 58 suburban school districts visited by state monitors in the past three years, none met all of Illinois's tough education requirements for students learning English, and 22 failed to provide a bilingual program for all of the students who qualified for it, according to a Catalyst Chicago analysis of Illinois State Board of Education records from fiscal year 2009 to October 2011.
Compliance problems included bilingual courses taught by teachers who lacked required language or subject-matter certification, classes with substandard content, and failure to make yearly assessments of how well students are learning English. English-language learners, about 80 percent of whom speak Spanish as their native language, are struggling academically in many suburban districts.
A majority of the state's Latinos -- 52 percent -- now live in Chicago's suburbs, the 2010 Census showed, while 38 percent live in the city. Since 2005, about 25 percent of suburban school districts have seen the number of English-language learners double -- in Plainfield School District 202, they have more than tripled, to about 2,082 in 2011 from about 674 in 2005.
Statewide, the number of English-language learners increased 10 percent to about 182,600 students from 2009 to 2011.
"There is a lot of hardship on some districts to comply where there are newer populations" of English-language learners, said Reyna Hernandez, assistant superintendent of the Center for Language and Early Childhood Development at the Illinois State Board of Education.
Carmen Avalos, who moved to Plainfield from Bolingbrook five years ago, said her son, Jesus, 11, struggled before his school started a bilingual program. But when it began, "his grades went up," she said through an interpreter. "For me, the program is complete because when my daughter goes to the Spanish classroom, she is taught the same" material as the English-speaking students, Ms. Avalos said.
First Published February 10, 2012 12:01 am
