'It would be best to speak English in classrooms' - Houston Chronicle

This has a bit to relate to my other (super secret) blog post this week, "Writing in the Disciplines," where I admittedly ranted for a while about the ignorance of some professors about what the hell writing is anyway. But I've gotten past that (for the week. A new week looms).

The hub-bub here is a middle school principal (-pal: "the principal is your pal") who allegedly told students not to speak Spanish on campus. That's the line that hit the headlines with community reaction expected:

Outside the board meeting, Kloecker said that the problem was Flores-Smith, not issues of culture or race.
"We've been a predominantly Hispanic district for several years now," she said. "But we never had a problem until she came." Flores-Smith started the job in August.
After the vote, Flores-Smith expressed satisfaction. "I'm hoping everything will die down now," she said. "We need to get back to peaceful living. And education."

These are easy reactions -- put an administrator on leave, make a public announcement in a sensitive area of Texas, hope it goes away. But it didn't go away. The principal appealed her dismissal with her attorney speaking for her:

Lacey's dismissal, Robinett said, "appears to be retaliation against her because she made a statement which she had every right to say. Basically, it was, 'Look, kids, we want you to learn English.' "
Robinett disputed reports that Lacey banned Spanish everywhere on campus.
"There was no ban," he said. "There were no consequences for speaking Spanish in class. In fact, Ms. Lacey stated her respect for the Hispanic culture and language.

The issue now hinges, ironically, on what defines language, what defines communication, and the power of language and text in determining who we are. Because the principal -- instead of using language to reconcile herself to her community, hired an attorney who -- BANG -- pulled out the Texas Code -- a language that certainly is not standard English to support her appeal:

but per state regulation, consistent with Section 29.051 of the Texas Education Code:
English is the basic language of this state. Public schools are responsible for providing a full opportunity for all students to become competent in speaking, reading, writing, and comprehending the English language. . . . The mastery of basic English skills is a prerequisite for effective participation in the state's educational program.

Using English to the extent possible would also allow non-Spanish-speaking teachers a better opportunity to assess understanding and learning. This is in keeping with Title 19, Texas Administrative Code 89.1201(c):
The goal of ESL programs shall be to enable English language learners to become competent in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in the English language through the integrated use of second language methods. The ESL program shall emphasize the mastery of English language skills, as well as mathematics, science, and social studies, as integral parts of the academic goals for all students to enable English language learners to participate equitably in school. 

Also, Hempstead Board policy, regarding English as a Second Language programs, states:
An ESL program shall be an intensive program of instruction in English from teacherstrained in recognizing and dealing with language differences.

OK. One by one:

1. "basic English language" of Texas. I won't quote from the Treaty of Hildalgo, but the idea of any "basic" language ignores reality and real scholarship (I don't want to dichotomize the two). The Texas Code 29.051 misunderstands dialect and idiolect, as well as the constant shift in all languages, English (whatever the hell that is; hereafter WTHTI) being a great example of a generous language that shifts and expands and contracts based on both emic and etic users. I have no idea what "basic" means in this course, because when I listen to Governor Perry defend his right to eliminate funding for the Travis County Public Integrity Unit, well, that's not basic English. It's Perry English, using words for his own use and not used in the same ways for most people:

Here we have what Orwell warned us about in "Politics and the English Language" :

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement."

 Now, if the principal at Hempstead had simply told her students to talk like Governor Perry, then she would still be in her principal's office this week.  But we would also all be damned.



2. Title 19, Texas Administrative Code 89.1201(c) further might as well expect a cure to cancer, poverty, and world conflicts. The "goals" of its idea of an ESL program (and a) it doesn't define "English," b) it doesn't define "second," and c) it doesn't define "learner" -- the Code just throws around ESL as a label of "people who don't sound like us. Oh, do I need to go on how Bush and Perry and 1/4 of the Legislators in the Texas House have ideolects that sound nothing like other Americans' Englishes? I need to do that. That would be fun. Nucular.). 

3. But it's that last line of 89.1201(c) -- "participate equitably in school." Wow. The Code assumes that language alone will ensure equitable learning/teaching/participation in Texas public schools. I'm almost speechless on that one. Even if ESL Edward comes up to a language skill where he can speak like Texan Tom, this is no guarantee that these two boys will ever expect equitable participation in school. The Code assumes that language is the great equalizer. Though I know that some folks see/read/hear language as a marker of class and intelligence, our American reality is that class, gender, physical markers, and just ill-prepared educators have much more to do with equitable participation than being able to pass the STAAR Test, English version. This last sentence of 89.1201(c) is fundamentally flawed in its reasoning -- if everyone speaks the very same language [Damn. I saw The Giver last week and noted how that society insisted on "precise language" at all times -- is that what the Texas Code expects? It doesn't matter. It was a bad film] we still cannot achieve equitable education in our schools because of all other bigotries, stratification, misunderstandings, and lack of empathy. ESL is not the issue. The institution itself is designed to maintain -- even strengthen -- social stratification of class, race, and gender, and coming to an understanding of "basic English (WTHTI) is not the panacea that the Texas Code claims it to be.

I don't care if the principal keeps her job or not. She hasn't don't anything so egregious against students' class, race, gender place in Texas communities that the community, the school, the state isn't working overtime to maintain anyway. She's learned a lesson in word choice.

On the other hand, I hope the students at the school take every damn chance to read and write and speak and sing and shout in Spanish and Vietnamese and Portuguese and Klingon and Esperanto and Hip Hop and Spanglish and every other means to communicate effectively with their peers so that everyone learns the real power of all language, the adoptive capacity of "English" and maybe we can just learn something from each other -- equitably -- instead of this banking model that we're all tired of. Considering that the Hempstead ISD's drop out rates aren't even precisely identified because of student privacy rights. Further, TEA keeps its STAAR reporting data behind obscure data formats (http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/reporting/staaragg/dnload.html) where parents -- the most concerned stakeholder of their children's success and how the school district performs -- cannot easily obtain essential data for comparisons. That's how bureaucracies maintain their power, inflate their payroll, and incestuously strengthen the legislators who bankroll their ineffective policies. Let's see some "basic English" on the TEA site and ask everyone to come to some common agreement of what they try to say.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BruceJMartin 
Twitter @comstone