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Our initial volume, Leadership for Change in Bilingual/ESL Education (1993) focuses on leadership and innovation. Seven articles address the ideas, challenges, and problem-solving strategies from the perspectives of school principals, serving in urban school settings, a state education agency administrator, and university researchers.

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The Original Version of the Initial Publication: Rationale and Probing Questions

In this section, titled Series Editor’s Preface, we present the volume’s original front matter that includes the production-level details, a rationale for the series, and pertinent questions we used in guiding the interview sessions. The entire volume is accessible in a PDF file for viewing the original texts. Please note that the edited version reflects the current use of certain terminology, for example, LEP was changed to Emergent Bilingual. The label “Hispanic” is maintained in its original form in most cases.

Interviews Excerpts From the Original Publication

In the second section, we present excerpts from the interview transcripts of four principals, three at the elementary level and one secondary level, and an administrator from the state education agency. Readers are urged to read the entire interviews in the Discovering Our Experiences in pdf format (pp. 6–41) embedded at the end of this post. A summary table of the key points from the interviews is included after the last interview.

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Final Section

1. Table I: Interview Summaries. In this table we summarize the “Reflection Summaries” from each of the interviews.

2. “Who Says You Can’t Do Research?” We include Dr. Flora Roebuck’s summary information from her article,

3. “Language Minority Students: Finders or Losers of the American Dream?” In the final section, we include the authored essay by Dr, Irma N. Guadarrama.

Note on Images

Some illustrative images in this post are AI-generated and are used solely for presentation purposes; they are not archival photographs from the original project.

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Series Editor’s Preface

“Discovering Our Experiences: Studies in Bilingual & ESL Education” is a serial publication designed for educators, principals, program directors, coordinators, and policymakers who work with language minority students and their educational programs. The publication’s primary objective is to serve as a platform for presenting innovative approaches, addressing concerns, and offering recommendations related to the education of this distinct population. The case studies format, utilizing interviews with practitioners, aims to provide readers with firsthand insights into their daily experiences and foster a deeper comprehension of the educational process for language minority students. By facilitating the exchange of successes and challenges among practitioners, the publication also seeks to enhance communication between the stakeholders within our educational system and policymakers who may occasionally overlook the concerns of the professionals in the field.

Rationale

Recent educational reform initiatives have highlighted the imperative to disseminate information regarding the distinct characteristics of language minority students to effectively address their educational needs. Practitioners and policymakers must prioritize the advancement and integration of innovative approaches that foster both academic excellence and equitable outcomes. The urgency of change is heightened, perhaps more so than ever, considering the challenges faced by educators and the pressing social issues that demand attention. The evolving demographics of our state and nation provide compelling evidence to persuade even the most skeptical individuals: 50% of our state’s school population comprises minority students, and over 16% requires bilingual education. While a significant portion of students previously enrolled in bilingual education still necessitates ESL-based instruction, Texas boasts a diverse linguistic landscape with over 80 languages represented among school-age bilingual students, with 90% of bilingual students proficient in Spanish as their second language. However, the most concerning statistics revealed in the statewide reports indicate a high dropout rate among Hispanic and African American students, as well as a persistent disparity in school dropout and college attendance rates between minority and Anglo students in certain regions. Notably, minority students exhibit a high school dropout rate of up to 60%.

Questions

What are the successful practices that focus on improving the educational process for language minority children? How are these implemented by principals and teachers? What are the concerns of practitioners, and what can policymakers learn from them? These are only a few basic questions that we highlight in these issues. In our premier issue, we focus on leadership. The interview narratives in the first section were interviewed, transcribed, and edited by a team consisting of a faculty member, program coordinator, editor, and graduate research assistant, all of whom are members of the Texas Women’s University community. Perhaps, the most innovative aspect of this publication, is the its interactive and informative format. Besides the case studies, we also invite and will include reader comments, editorials, and other related experimental formats. The procedure is as easy as dialing our toll-free number or writing us at the address below. We are especially interested in including ideas or other innovations that have been implemented by our readers who are teachers or principals in the practice section. We present timely ideas and other information derived from research of the cutting-edge quality and in the point of view section. Authors are provided an opportunity to reflect on perspectives raised in the cases presented and generate discussion on ways to improve the educational process.

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Interview Excerpts

These include school-wide literacy projects, promoting the community’s role in education by involving parents, incorporating the native language and culture into the school culture, relocating computers from computer labs to classrooms, multi-aged schooling, and fostering positive and productive teacher-teacher and teacher-student relationships.

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The Leadership Challenge (pp. 6–12)

The first time I came to Ferguson, the building was empty, dirty, and run-down. It smelled bad. I went to the physical plant and met with my head custodian and requested cleaning, painting, and repairs. Children need an environment that is clean and conducive to learning. Then I met with my head secretary to see if we could get money for decent furniture because all the furnishings were old and torn. Our facility was built 22 years ago as a temporary structure, and today, it is housing more children than ever intended. As I looked through the files, I found that the Texas Education Agency had been there the year before and noted about 25 areas that were not in compliance with state guidelines. The list included no cross-level articulation among faculty members, too many children accepted into the special education program, too many exemptions for deficiencies in library holdings, and other serious problems regarding inappropriate instruction.

Ms. Espinosa discussed the literacy activities that she and her teachers implemented throughout the entire school. One such project was a school-wide Ferguson Book Buddies program. Older children and younger children were paired to read together two or three times a week. Initially, the older children read to the younger ones, but now they take turns.

They share not just books but personal writings; it’s part of our entire day. Sometimes we find out about a tragic home life, which in turn gets communicated to the counselor. These experiences have ramifications way beyond the curriculum. We mix bilingual and nonbilingual youngsters to give them opportunities to work together socially and linguistically in uncommon academic turf.

Family Dynamics:  Organizing the entire school in family groupings

The configurations of our school were then changed to “families” consisting of kindergarten through third grade, with about four to six teachers per family. The particular needs of the youngsters in each family were the responsibility of those teachers. Teachers worked out the details necessary for planning the days, weeks, and months, placing the children’s needs before grade level assignments. For example, a kindergarten may go right with a first or third grade group. It gives the youngsters opportunities to have their academic needs taken care of without the stigma of being retained. Grouping is fluid so that a second grader may be reading with first graders if it is necessary, without causing any embarrassment as may happen in the traditional grade level classroom. Children are regrouped with regard to interest and ability. That was another big change for us.

Leading by Example and Earning the Right to Make Changes

Change will come if supported by a higher authority like evaluations from the Texas State Teacher Association, but more importantly, teachers see that I am in the classrooms two or three times a day. Being there, I know the children, not only those sent to the office or with discipline problems but the children that are doing well. I see the interaction between teachers and the children. I know firsthand how something worked in the classroom instead of receiving secondhand information. I give teachers encouragement in their boxes and praise in our meetings. Our meetings are no longer for disseminating information; I use the bulletin board for that. Instead, we use our meetings for staff development. I have a whole bunch of books explaining the writing process and shared reading to help children enter instruction. It is a teacher’s job to try it and to share what was new, different, and exciting in their classrooms with their colleagues. The teachers really did it themselves, but it took a great deal of encouragement from me and it took showing them by my actions that I indeed supported these behaviors in their classrooms.

Philosophical Shift

While working with the staff of a regional service center in the area of curriculum instruction, I had the opportunity to come into contact with experts who endorsed whole language teaching approaches for language minority children. One thing had always bothered me: how can we precisely control the phonetic information for the youngsters? It wasn’t until coming into contact with whole language that I began to see a different way of approaching it. Our hang-up was that we believed that children should not go into English until they have totally mastered Spanish. Well, there is something wrong here because no one can master anything totally to any given point, especially a 6-7 or eight-year-old when there is so much linguistic interaction going on that we don’t control. When I opened my reasoning, I looked at education in a different light. I started reading Lucy Calkins, the work going on in Australia, and the writing process. I interface with teachers in a different way. I found teachers willing to work with me, and in three years, we turned around the program. We brought interdisciplinary teaching into the middle school for language acquisition.

Ways to Empower Teachers

Since I had no history as a principal, they judged me on what they saw. I was in the classroom all the time. I was talking curriculum and instruction with them. I was sharing my books. I was letting them make decisions. For example, I asked the bilingual teachers why aren’t you using more books in Spanish? Why aren’t you bringing in the children’s culture into the classroom? They didn’t know. In the past, they had always complied with the principal’s philosophy, and I think prior to me, it was “ let’s keep pretty much to English.” So for our school implementation program, and every school should have one, I said, “Let’s go back and say what we really want to say and let’s do what we really want.” I asked what shall we continue to do from our new implementations. They chose to continue the school-wide authorship program, although I planted the seed. They were excited about it because they got involved in planning and implementing it. In other words, if they hadn’t been given the opportunity to make those decisions, I don’t think the program would have survived.

Re-examining the Role of Principal

It is difficult to move forward without being both a visionary and a good manager. I will be honest with you. I have more vision than I do organizational skills, so I make sure I surround myself with people that can help me organize. I tell them to help keep me honest. I give them some perimeters. I would say I’d really like to see something like this because I am a very global thinker. They will come back and say, “Oh, this is what you mean.” They will give it to me in a much more detailed format, but I do believe unless the principal continues reading, continues growing, continues going to conferences, continues talking to people like you, unless we continue to interact at this level of thinking, there will be no vision. You can have a very well-organized, well-meaning school, but with a limited range of what children will be capable of doing.

Confronting Assessment Issues from Multiple Perspectives

I could see in this school why the test scores were plummeting after I studied the history of how these children were taught. Someone came in and said, “You will not use any more Spanish.” Well, you can’t cut the mother tongue from our children and expect them to feel like worthwhile individuals and learners. I don’t believe you can draw concern for children’s feelings from the other criteria for an effective school. You have to look at the total well-being of the community, and if you look after the well-being of the community, your test scores will reflect that.

As long as instruction is interesting, as long as students feel their culture, their families, and what they stand for is an important part of the school, and as long as they are involved and challenged, I believe they will have children that want to grow and learn. But the key is to make children think for themselves within certain established perimeters. Teach choice and selection. Some parents say to me, “Ms. Espinosa, I can’t believe you can’t control an 6-year-old, but it’s not about control. It’s about teaching children how to make decisions and providing meaningful consequences.”

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One of her innovative ideas involves clustering or teaming teachers and students across grade levels. This approach creates a cohesive yet diverse program that caters to the varied needs of the students.

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Innovation: Doing What Needs to be Done (pp. 13–18)

Ms. Hidalgo held up a huge planning book used by the teams to map out their thematic units. This book facilitates the gradual implementation of new ideas, allowing for preparation time, focused staff development, and research. Additionally, the teams visit other model programs to seek support from the community and organizations. These organizations even donated funds to send staff and parents to visit other programs. Parents actively participate in information meetings, viewing implementation plans as an ongoing process.

To ensure effective communication and maintain low student retention rates, Ms. Hidalgo encourages the school counselor to act as an intermediary. Furthermore, she carefully screens language minority students upon referrals for special education and conducts thorough screenings of prospective teachers.

Adriana Hidalgo, a native of South Texas, grew up in two distinct school districts. One was predominantly Hispanic and African American, while the other had predominantly Anglo student population. As a student in the minority school district, she recalls the teachers’ high expectations for her and her peers, regardless of their race or socioeconomic background. This supportive environment significantly contributed to her self-esteem.

In 1968, Ms. Hidalgo graduated, a year before the consolidation of the school districts. Subsequently, she pursued higher education at a university in central Texas, where she earned her education degree. Her educational philosophy, shaped by her father’s influence and her own experiences, is rooted in the belief that everyone deserves equal opportunities, irrespective of their race or ethnicity.

Throughout her teaching career, spanning 23 years, including 10 years as an administrator, Ms. Hidalgo has embraced various educational approaches and has been trained in multiple methodologies. While serving as a teacher in South Texas, she completed her master’s degree by attending graduate school in the summers. Subsequently, she embarked on her doctoral studies journey, relocating to Dallas to attend a nearby university. In Dallas, she became the principal of Excalibur Elementary School.

Excalibur was founded in 1920 as a prep school. The school has only had five principals in 64 years. They stay a long time. That’s a nice thing too. Teachers come and they stay. The only reason they move on is retirement or their husbands are transferred. And it is the same thing with the children. We have kids whose parents I taught in fifth grade. It is a cycle: teachers’ kids and principals. That is a fact people don’t look at very often. Only one out of 100 of our students move to another school. We are 85% Hispanic and 5% Anglo, and the rest is a combination of Asian and Native American. Everybody cooperates. The families we serve are low as to the socioeconomic status, but our very stable. Some families have been here more than 5 generations. The Hispanic population has grown since I taught here. Only 4th through 6th grades had bilingual classes back then. Now there are approximately 30 sections.

My philosophy is that not everybody is good for everybody, and I may not be the principal for you, just as you may not be the right teacher for every student. This is an obstacle we constantly run into. If a student is not working well with a teacher, then we remove him or her. That doesn’t mean that she is a bad teacher; she’s just not the right one for the student. This is why we make it so easy to move our students. We have clustering; sometimes it’s 66 or 100 students for four teachers, and they regroup them constantly. A teacher may say, “He can’t get math with me, so I will send him over to somebody else.” So the child is not losing.

We have had only 15 retainees out of 1,038 students in the whole school. Teachers understand that I don’t believe in retention unless everything else has been tried. We believe in the premise of developmental learning stages. For example, I should not be punished if it takes me 50 times to pass the driving test while it only took you three times. The Department of Public Safety doesn’t punish you; they don’t ask how many times you practice. You want to go when you were ready. This is the philosophy I have about retention. Even if a child needs extra time to learn a particular thing, he shouldn’t be punished by being retained. He needs to go on anyway. Eventually, it’s going to click for him. Also, from my experience as a student, I know that many times Hispanics were referred to special education because they did not know what they were expected to know. If you didn’t know, you were considered retarded. That’s something that is always in the back of my mind. So at this school, we don’t refer to special education because of language, especially in the case of Hispanic, Native American, or African American children. In fact, we don’t refer to Special Education unless we know everything else has been tried – a process that takes two years.

Teachers of a cluster plan together. They group the students together at the end of every six weeks. They identify who is failing and ask if that student needs to change clusters or teachers. They might try changing students around to see if it works. Kindergarten, first, second, and part of third grade comprise a three-teacher cluster. Fourth grade is a five-teacher cluster with one self-contained classroom; 5th grade is a four-teacher cluster with one self-contained classroom, and four teachers are called intermediates and teach 1st through 4th grades. Next year, we’re going to initiate a multi-age cross-culture unit because we see a need for that. The teachers in each cluster plan together, meet together, and, as they told me not too long ago, it’s like a marriage. They need to know how to congeal and come together as a group. When they don’t congeal, we revamp for the next year. The people are moved without any negative feelings. They discovered they just couldn’t work together.

Advantages for Clustering

Students can hear an objective or be taught at a lesson in three, four, or five different ways. They have more opportunities to learn within the time limit. There is no longer that constraint time: 45 minutes for language arts, 45 minutes for math. They have big blocks of time: 2 1/2 hours. Therefore, when a child has to practice, he has plenty of time. For example, if a third grader needs to spend more time on a lesson, he may do so because his next cluster, say PE, is an hour and a half long. Teachers can work the schedule out so that the child doesn’t feel punished. Also, they don’t have to take the work home, and sometimes our parents cannot help them.

Working with Teachers

When we started our clustering plan, I wanted the teachers to experience being students, so during staff development, I treated them like they were students. Firstly, the assistant principal was very oriented toward the classroom and instruction. We were geared into the reading mode, comprehension skills, and so on. So we had to make the teachers experience the frustration of being a student who was expected to learn something difficult, like statistics. They had to experience the feelings first, then change their attitudes. So we did a lot of staff development. We did a great deal of reading. We visited schools in Houston and brought speakers in from the regional service center. They had a full year of preparation because I didn’t change anything the first year, but I kept telling them, “This is the way we are going, and I want you to come with me.” But if you can’t come with me, then you need to look someplace else. A majority of them decided to stay. We asked the teachers who they wanted to work with if they had a choice of anybody in the building. They were so indoctrinated that kindergarten always met together, first grade always went together, without any mixing of grades. So, we had to make sure the teachers had the opportunities to meet other teachers outside their grade levels – socially. I would call faculty meetings for such mixers because some didn’t know who the other teachers were.

We raised money to visit schools. We got a grant from the Osteopathic Association to visit schools with innovative programs. I took parents with me because I needed their support, too. We had community meetings in the evening so parents could come and act like students and practice running through the schedules. We did a lot of work with students, parents, and teachers in order to get where we wanted to go. In the spring of 1992, we piloted for six weeks to work out the kinks, and the following year was full immersion into the plan. The objective for making these changes and looking at other programs was to help the minority student. If these children can do so well, what more can they achieve? I would tell my teachers, “You guys can’t rest on your laurels. There is somebody out there that’s better than you are.” I wanted them to see it because seeing is believing, so we went and found kindergarteners that were on the same level as our second graders. It was mind-boggling. We began to ask what it is we’re not doing, so we began to revamp and see what we could do. There was a big change of attitude in the teachers.

Problem Solving

The counselor is very important as an intermediary. She is in a position where the teachers know that if they didn’t agree with me and couldn’t tell me, they could tell the counselor, and then the counselor would come and tell me their concerns. But I don’t care how many times teachers disagree with me, I want them to feel free to do it. In fact, I would rather have them tell me than leave the room and undermine what we’re doing. So, I encourage them to go ahead and tell me, just don’t be ugly about it. I say, “You know, I won’t yell at you, and you won’t yell at me.” Because I can always go back and think, for example, “maybe they do have a valid point. Maybe we are moving too fast. Maybe we should go back and reconsider.” And then I would say to the teacher, “that’s a great idea that you have,” and we would implement it. She would feel a part of the team again. It takes a lot of talking and working with each other. We are still working at communicating. Some teachers want me to step in and solve a conflict between themselves and other teachers, but I’m not going to intercede. I believe that if you don’t like what somebody else is doing, you need to find a way to say it to her. It’s not my problem. So my teachers work at it now. They come and tell me we need to have a meeting because we want to discuss the problems we’re having. They come together, we talk, and we resolve it. They have to know sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it takes 5 or 6 days to resolve an issue.

Faculty Meetings

We don’t have whole faculty meetings because meetings with individual clusters are scheduled by our blocks all week long. By Friday, I have met with every cluster. I don’t run the meetings. I’m just a member. I’m there to answer questions and give guidance if needed. The issues and concerns are different in each cluster. We keep minutes and we talk about it. Then the grade level chairpersons will come to meet with me on Monday afternoons. I tell them the current thing that the district is doing or requiring, such as routine reports, and they in turn go back to the cluster and do whatever needs to be done. But we only have big faculty meetings when I have to introduce new members to the faculty or administer a survey. We are working on improving our curriculum. The teachers are working on it this summer without pay. They do whatever needs to be done with some staying until 7:00 or 8:00 at night. We are all committed.

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A Guiding Passion: Dedication to Children’s Language Potential (pp.19–27)

Guadalupe Escamilla’s unwavering dedication to educational equity for second language learners is deeply rooted in her theoretical understanding of bilingual education and her extensive experience as a teacher and administrator. As a principal, Ms. Escamilla combines her confidence, knowledge, and experience to create a multifaceted role. However, her visionary skills are most evident in her intense commitment to overcoming any obstacles that hinder her students’ academic achievement goals. She acknowledges the challenges and setbacks in achieving academic success and questions whether bilingual education is necessary, the importance of materials, and why it is essential. Twenty-two years later, these questions remain relevant. Ms. Escamilla’s vision for change is clear, even though it may seem impossible. However, for her, it is attainable in her school and others.

We can learn many lessons from Ms. Escamilla. Among these are the need for significant changes in the system, but there are ways to overcome it. Persistence is key. Teachers and principals must be well-informed about the research in bilingual education and know how to implement it. They must have ownership in the educational programs and principles must facilitate that process. Teachers and principals must establish reliance and trust so that teachers know their principal is behind them and vice versa. Principles play a crucial role in providing educational equity to underrepresented students, and an accountability system should address the effectiveness of principals in that process. Principles have the authority to establish ground rules and determine what is negotiable and what is not in designing and implementing change. However, the effectiveness of this process depends on how well the principal is informed and experienced in bilingual education.

Major Life Influences

The four years I taught in Crystal City, TX, from 1977 to 1981 really made me what I am today. I interviewed for a job when I heard 85% of the teachers had left Crystal City because they did not like the idea of the Mexicans taking over. I was told I would be a second-grade bilingual teacher. I said, “But I’m not elementary certified. I’m secondary. I don’t know anything about little kids!” My Superintendent, Angel Gonzalez, said, “Guadalupe, you’re going to learn real fast.” And he was absolutely right because learn we did! A puro trancoso. It was brand new; we were all just starting out. Raza Unida had just won, and the whole nation was looking at us. We had to succeed. We had to show them that Mexicans could be in control and could succeed. I got to Crystal City ready to march, ready to fight, but all that was left was a lot of hard work. I learned so much these four years. I was in the Teacher Corps and got my master’s in elementary education with a minor in bilingual education. I supervised the bilingual program there. I was assistant principal, the first female administrator in Crystal City. I wrote curriculum. We were correcting history in this curriculum. That is what was so wonderful about it – la verdadera historia del Alamo. I mean the real stuff.

Those experiences were invaluable. If it had not been for that, I would probably still be in the valley teaching and not having much amounted to much. It took something as dramatic as what was going on in Crystal City to shake me up and move me out. Plus, I’m good. I am a hard worker, and once I believe in something, you always want me in your camp. I am a good and loyal friend. I will fight to the end. That’s just me. Having been in Crystal really awakened me in terms of our people, our cause. When I saw people like José Ángel Gutiérrez fighting so hard to make things right for our people, I could not help but fall right in there. We did not do it for what was in it for us. Lord, it was all hard work. A salary of $6,000, thank you, Mr. González, but we did it because we believed in what was going on. Also, I had a lot of nurturing, a lot of push from people. We saw the potential in me, and José Angel Gutiérrez, for one, had kept pushing me to get my master’s. José Ángel said, “You can’t settle for intern. You’ve got to be a team leader.” I’d say he’d don’t even know what a team leader is, and he’d say, “Everyone will learn at the same time.” So I said, “ OK, well, OK. I’ll try. I have always been at the right place at the right time.”

From there, I went to Anthony. I was a Title 7 director, and I got to put that good experience from Crystal into practice at Anthony. It was more of a managerial position, so I learned the other side. In Austin, I was a parental involvement specialist. Then, in Dallas, I was a facilitator for the bilingual education program and a resource teacher.

Then I went back to La Jolla for a while and did it all there at the secondary level. I was in charge of ESL at the high school. Then I became director of elementary education, so I worked with all the principals there. I was in charge of all the programs: the gifted and talented, bilingual, and computer. I have had a multitude of experiences. It’s been great. Then I came back to Dallas, and this is my 7th year as the principal. All my experiences have come together at this point in my life. I think it has worked out to my benefit. The questions we were asking back then were: do we need bilingual education? What about materials? We were having to rely on Puerto Rican and teacher-made materials at the time. Why do we need bilingual education? And today, 22 years later, we’re still asking the same questions. You would think we would have progressed from by now to asking how do we improve what we were doing.

It is a shame that some people in our country have taken the stand that English is the language of the world and refused to look at the definite advantages of bilingualism. I am a believer in bilingual education. When done well, it works beautifully, but when done wrong, it hurts our children tremendously. It is really important that whoever is in charge knows what she is doing, has a good, qualified staff, and good materials.

The School

Before I arrived at Alexander, the bilingual program was equivalent to an English-only program. They called it bilingual, but it was not that at all. They were using a whole language strategy, and the teachers were trained exceptionally well in the developmental language experience charts to extract skills. Even though there was a great deal in place, native language instruction was practically nonexistent. Kindergarten only had 1 1/2 hours of native language instruction. I thought it should be the other way around: 1 1/2 hours of second language instruction. I decided we needed to change directions. The importance of bilingual education is critical. Anyone that is familiar with the research will tell you that the fastest way to get children into a second language is if they know their first language well. You only learn to read and write once. After that, everything else is a transfer. If that is the case, you have to make sure you do an excellent job of teaching them to read and write well first because if that is not in place, then they will not have anything solid to transfer into the second language. Much of the bilingual education is based on the premise of transfer. That’s not to say that once you move into English, you drop the Spanish. On the contrary, children need to continue in their native language because that is where higher-level speaking skills are developed. Once children know how to sequence, how to infer, how to predict, and how to summarize, it will be easy to do it in English but have to know how it well in their native language first. So when I became principal and they were teaching math in English to Spanish monolingual students, I said that’s ridiculous. We’re wasting precious time. You see, I believe that we should be learning while learning English, not learning English at the expense of learning. When a principal has such deeply seated beliefs, it is easy to get a good bilingual program in place. I believe that children should have a very strong native language base. Without it, kids will fail or be placed in special education. Then eventually, we’ll drop out. I do not want that. Our children are too smart, and our teachers work too hard to get those kinds of results.

School Implementation Plan

The first thing we did was write it into our school improvement plan that we were going to be doing true bilingual education. We were going to do native language development and test in the native language. We were not going to test our kids at the end of 2nd grade in English, so we purchased the SABE test, and sure enough, our kids were doing well. Of course, they are doing well; of course, they are going to do poorly if they are tested in English after native language instruction. We knew we were on the right track, but we had to improve ourselves. Teachers went to a great deal of teacher training, and they themselves provided training for the district.

Bucking the System

I do not agree with the approach that the district and state are promoting. In fact, I’m trying to get them in line with me. I don’t believe the bilingual immersion model that is being implemented now is good for our kids, and I am the first one out there to say that. I find myself in the role of the advocate for the child who is Spanish dominant, and I will take anybody on. I am dissatisfied with our children, and I do not think many others are saying that. If people do not believe in bilingual education, well, they should get out of the way. Our mission is to succeed. Our numbers are increasing every year, and we cannot continue to have this horrendous problem of dropout. Some say our kids are not achieving because they are LEP students, but I refuse to accept that notion. We found here at John Alexander School that our children who had gone through our developmentally appropriate bilingual education program were outscoring regular kids in 3rd grade. How can this be? Well, let me tell you. With a solid base in their native language, who knows they can do anything.

Reasons for Resistance

I think it is ignorance. People just do not understand bilingual education. It is really hard to understand unless you have been there yourself. I am not saying you have to be bilingual. A bilingual teacher is in order to be a good principal and have a strong bilingual education background. But you know, it sure helps. I have always been a teacher rebel, but now I am on the other side, and I realize I can make or break programs. I can make or break teachers and kids. It is an awesome responsibility when we have people who are undermining bilingual education or who say they have a program but allow their teachers to do native language instruction only once a week, 1 1/2 hours per day. I wonder where is the accountability? I have even heard that some principals say just keep the Spanish materials out, but what these kids really need is English, and that’s what you’re going to teach. If anyone comes to monitor you, just have the Spanish materials out to show that’s what you have been using. I wonder who is holding these people responsible.

Changes and Improvements

If I could change anything, I would want to preserve the child’s self-concept because if there is a positive self-concept, he or she becomes a risk-taker. Risk-takers are going to be trying new things, but somehow we have institutionalized our schooling to the point where you can already see by the 3rd grade which kid has no self-concept, which one is demoralized, and which one is great and can take on the world. That is one thing.

The other thing I would do is get rid of all the teachers that do not like kids. I wish we could change our assessment of teachers. This TTAS is for the birds. It tells you what a dog and pony show should look like, but that is not the problem. It is the day in, day out that is critical right now. The board comes down on us because we have so many teachers scoring so high, and yet the kids are not achieving, and they think we are the bad guys.

The Balancing Act

The challenge is balancing it all: being the collaborator, the bad guy, the friend, the humanist, the big baton. You have to keep a certain momentum going. When you are depressed, you should really stay home because it runs through the building so quickly. You do what you need to do and carry on. You always have to be up for your staff. Let them see that you are smiling and good morning them to death. If you do it consistently, it runs through the building. I want to make our buildings a place where people want to come to work. We work really hard at that.

Tomorrow I’m treating the staff to fajitas. It is Cinco de Mayo and it is also Teacher Appreciation Week.

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He believes more strongly than ever that the answer to the educational challenge rests with teachers, and he advocates empowering them at every opportunity.

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Empowerment is the Key: A Principal’s Conviction (pp. 28–35)

If there was ever a perfect match between a leader and a school, it could be argued that such a match exists between Mr. Gonzalez and Wayside High School. His incredible zeal for change is particularly noteworthy. He is a fearless leader, a master of creating school culture, a persuasive and careful negotiator. Mr. Gonzalez is a strong and relentless advocate for his staff and students. He has maintained high expectations for students, high teaching standards for teachers, and a reputation for making his school a special place where only dedicated and committed individuals are invited to challenge themselves and do their best work. The work that Mr. Gonzalez and his staff have undertaken to improve their educational program for their students demonstrates their solid commitment to their profession.

The School Community

Wayside High School is comprised of 1600 students, 75% of whom are Hispanic. Of this group, 30 to 40% are either EB or in our preliterate program. Other ethnic varieties representing 19 different countries include 12% Asian Vietnamese, Amerasian, Cambodian, and Laotians, but the most frequent language spoken is Spanish. Many of our students are here illegally, most of whom are Hispanic. This is a sad reality because some of our top, top, top graduates are here illegally and don’t qualify for further resistance, but they make do and usually take the junior college route. They are too good to be suppressed. As an example, our valedictorian was a top candidate for the Dallas Morning News scholarship, but he was named GTE All American. All out of 6000 students, he was chosen for a FINA scholarship, but all these organizations require non-immigrant status. He is from Guatemala. A kid like this is going to shine no matter what. Wayside is a comprehensive high school, by that I mean we offer every facet of Texas high school life that our native-speaking counterpart has. We want to continue to do that because it is part of Texana –  it’s part of Americana, and as our students begin to assimilate, they can say in college, “Oh, yeah, I bought an annual, I took part in the band, the choir, or the football team.” Also, when their kids come home mentioning stuff about high school life, they can identify with them. It is a conviction we have that many people may not understand, but we didn’t want to become a magnet for EB students.

Some of the activities that Mr. Gonzalez has implemented include promoting ESL strategies and activities in all of their content area courses, adding a fifth year to their program to accommodate the needs of their pre-literate students, working with the feeder middle school to improve the transitioning process for students, working with the community to increase their involvement in the education of the students, and presenting a forum for teacher self-expression called the family advisory committee. Mr. Gonzalez is especially successful in his role as a public relations agent and has also worked hard to nurture leadership skills among his teaching staff. He values teachers’ contributions and supports them. Besides, we think it’s kind of neat to have a Cambodian quarterback throwing the ball ocean-wide, receiver blocked by a Mexican. Every facet of our program starts from the beginning because our students don’t have a frame of reference.

When ESL is the School

Consequently, we have the most dynamic, aggressive ESL department, which is the largest in the state. We have 24 teachers, and we’ll probably have 27 next year, depending on the LEP population. We work stringently to train our regular subject area teachers and ESL methodology because the regular program no longer exists in this school. This school is an ESL program. The core teachers in regular education are the minority, but they are important because once the student exits ESL, we have to provide a basis for landing in the regular core. Students must be hit with a consistent delivery system from 9th grade through 12th grade. A new way of teaching in visiting classes and looking at test results, we found that although Juan exited ESL in good standing in regular core, he failed. We didn’t know why. We identified a cognitive lag in students between exiting ESL with its nurturing environment and entering the regular classroom with the old paradigm of teaching. So we decided on a consistent address and delivery system of objectives. Our ESL department works very aggressively with the regular core teachers at their request. It is a challenge to convince veteran teachers that they need to look at a new way of teaching.

Making Adjustments

Math, for instance, taught the old way: assignment division – do the odd number problems. The students do not do the homework, so for punishment, they are given the even number problems too, that is, twice as many. They needed a different delivery system: more hands-on, whole language, discovery learning. We weren’t doing that. The teacher would say, “Just read the text, do the questions.” “Read and do questions.” We had to break those habits. We wanted them to touch the stuff. For example, if you teach measurement using litters and go get a three-liter bottle of Pepsi and show them 3 liters, we found out the reason our students are failing history was because history in ESL started at 1865 and went to the present. No background was ever provided prior to 1865. That was no problem. We fixed that, but when students exit ESL, their language problem is still there. For example, in U.S. history, there are the words “flower,” “compact,” and “May.” “Flower” could be a rose or what you use to make tortillas; “compact” could be something small tightly interwoven or the thing your mom uses with powder. “ May” could be something you used to ask permission or Cinco de Mayo, but what the heck is a Mayflower Compact?

The sophistication of applying the vocabulary they’ve learned and synthesizing higher-level skills was not quite there yet because they just learned English a year ago. The concept of osmosis is another example. The biology teacher was wearing himself out using sheltered biology, but the kids weren’t responding. I asked him how he felt. He said, “Man, I know they’re not getting anything. I don’t know what I am not doing.” We started working again, and that’s where we realized the cognitive lag was developing. They didn’t have osmosis as a word in ESL or chromosomes and all that stuff, so now our program is designed so it has ESL for science, ESL for history, a little bit of background, so when they get into core work, they will be prepared. This will prepare them. Plus, the key is the consistent delivery system. I want teachers to understand these kids are not dumb. What they need is to be presented with material in a different way, so this is what we are all about.

Staff Selection

The veterans are harder to convince, but the new people we are hiring, no matter for what class, we ask them, “ Are you ready for this?” They come and observe; it is a test to find out how excited they are about joining our staff. I firmly believe you have to want to teach at Wayside High School and not just a high school in Dallas.

As we add new people, we have a tier system. Prospective teachers interview with me, the Dean, the ESL department head, and the head of their specialty. Then we ask them to come back and visit, walk around, look at the classes, and see the challenge.

We have seen a difference in selecting teachers after they observe. They say, “Hey, I want to go to the next step.” They do demonstration lessons using their own classes if they are at another school and want to transfer. We visit the class of their choice. We send three people and use a simple instrument to see if they are teaching. They come back. We debrief, and it’s either “three-up unanimous,” or we don’t select the person. That has yielded a better product. Plus, we’ve involved our present staff. As a result, the new person already has three pals plus the three that selected him or her and his buddies tried to make sure their brother is going to be good.

Preliterate Program

Four years ago, level one teachers told me their 15 to one ratio level cap was overflowing. A new phenomenon was occurring: students lower than the level one were coming in. I asked what we could do. They said, “Create a new preliterate program,” and we did it. My only problem in implementing this program has been getting out of their way fast enough. The teachers say they need something, and I say, “Well, can you design it?” They say yes, so we do it. For example, we looked at the teacher-to-pupil ratio and allocation of staff members. We made changes all within our budget and with permission.

Because they are in ESL levels, the students move up based on LPAC, the Language Proficiency Assessment Committee, comprised of teachers and counselors. We recognize traditional high school is 4 years, but we have no problem with a five-year program, so we say let us initially elongate the program by design so they finish even if it takes five years. At the end of five years, we’ll have a better product in terms of language acquisition, and they may have greater success on the TAAS. LPAC identifies the students that are acquiring language faster, so we do not slow down those that are sharp.

Coordinating with Feeder Schools

Every year, at least 600 of our students come in with no skills. They are not from our feeder system. We cannot say that they are; however, we have gotten together with our feeder junior high to produce Wayside graduates. I fight for them as well as I do for Wayside. We do staff developments on Saturdays now. Teachers from the junior high can look at our Wayside teachers in the eye and say, “My kids are prepared for you because you told me what you wanted.” I want that teachers’ integrity to be challenged. Man, you have to be prepared. You are going into Gonzalez’s class next year, and he is good. I don’t want him to think less of me for not teaching you this.

So we started a process of accountability this year for those that go through the feeder system. We are trying to make sure teachers know each other because if I’m going to blame you for not preparing this child, I ought to be able to tell you face to face that you are not addressing subjunctive case, and that’s on the TV AAS. You have to help me prepare them for that. I want to create an atmosphere where teachers can peer coach and say, “ I’m next door to you, and you didn’t do so well on that portray chapter.” And then the other teacher would say, “No, I didn’t. Can you help me on it?”

Again, the teachers are the stars we have to hitch our wagon to. When I tell them they’re no good, it becomes a punitive, then adversarial situation. But when I or you tell a peer you need help, that is not threatening. It will take a lot of ego purifying, but we are headed that way.

Self-confidence in Teachers

The teachers here at Wayside used to believe that they were nothing, so in turn, the kids believed they were nothing too. I did things here you are not supposed to be able to do with students. I changed the dress code, I confronted the gangs, I set up reward systems for snitching on graffiti artists, and I called them do-dos, but you should not be able to do this with a student body unless the student body feels it is nothing. The student body should have challenged me, but they didn’t. Now they believed the reality: they are somebody and they can compete with anyone. It bothered me a lot that the teachers were contributing to the problem. They would say these kids can’t. I would say, “What do you mean they can’t? How do you know? Have you tried? Have you asked them again? This is nothing new. People who change things do that.”

Family Advisory Committee

We have a forum for teachers to express their frustrations called the Family Advisory Committee, which is completely anonymous. The ones who trust me come in here, close the door, and blow off steam. Then they go right back to what they need to do. I know some are not comfortable with my style, but they work with the kids, do their jobs, so we are OK.

After I realized teachers were going to need to change with site-based management, I met with every department. I laid down the old paradigm and told them we were going to be needing a lot more energy from teachers in terms of student involvement, direct teaching, and activities. If they were not interested, the district was large enough to assimilate their styles somewhere else. I would help with no hard feelings, but if they wanted to be a part, great. I wanted to use peer coaching. I wanted the department heads to take care of their own. The science department said, “Oh, we don’t want Mr. so-and-so.” I asked, “Did you tell him why?” Do you want me to tell him, they’d say, “Well, you’re the principal”? I say, “Wait a minute. I like the guy. I know he’s not a good teacher, but I like him. Why do you want me to be the bad guy? I didn’t become a principal to be a bad guy.” They asked, “What do we do?” I told them, “ I don’t know. You tell me what you want to do.” They decided to talk to the teacher. I said it up, bought food, stayed after school with them, and had a departmental meeting first. They told the guy he wasn’t carrying his load and they did not appreciate it. I debriefed with him and told him that unless he improved, the other teachers did not want him to stay. He improved, but I don’t know if he could ever mend what he had already done through this experience. The department realized they had the power to change direction.

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Dr. Zamora emphasized the importance of implementing change, consensus decision-making, developing partnerships and collaborations, and responding appropriately to the diverse cultural and linguistic needs of our schools.

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Leading at the State Level: An Interview with Dr. Roberto Zamora (pp. 36–41)

Dr. Zamora’s commitment to improving education for all students is evident in his deep understanding of the challenges faced by language minority students. He has consistently pointed out the pervasive misconceptions about the capabilities of these students and the negative perceptions toward bilingual education and ESL programs. Dr. Zamora also highlighted the well-documented failure rates among Hispanic students, the destructive tracking practices, low expectations toward language minorities, and overall apathy toward improving the educational process for these students.

However, some of Dr. Zamora’s ideas have yet to be incorporated into the state agencies’ plans for action.

One point of conflict arises from the agency’s rule to promote excellence and equity. Dr. Zamora stated that in light of this role, they expect all students to perform at high levels. This means that if there is a performance gap among different groups, the gap is expected to be closed. However, the accountability system has a different approach to fulfilling its role in ensuring equity. The plan states that if any African American, Hispanic, white, or economically disadvantaged student population comprises more than 20% of the total population, and if the 20% or fewer of that group passes all tests taken, the accountability system will not fulfill its role in ensuring equity. The district accreditation status will be downgraded to “accredited warned.” In other words, districts with low enrollment of language minority students, the majority of whom have consistently failed the state test, will be cited as unacceptable by the agency, even though their overall passing rate among most of the students is acceptable. This strategy can best be described not as having an equity intent but rather as an incentive for schools directly affected to find drastic, often inappropriate, ways to teach to the test.

Secondly, Dr. Zamora, asserted that the agency is now providing appropriate assessments to determine whether students are learning. However, a task group is formulating plans for alternative assessment procedures for language minority students. They also commented that districts have the flexibility to implement programs that will help them achieve desired outcomes. However, the current testing instruments are questionable in their intent to truly measure what they purport to measure. Are they assessing content or English language proficiency in language minority students? It seems that the agency needs to determine what it wants to measure and devise more appropriate ways to do so. For example, why not test students in their native language to assess their mastery of the content and use other means to assess or monitor their progress in learning English as a second language?

Thirdly, Dr. Zamora stated that the state’s role is to set expectations in terms of what students are supposed to learn and provide assessments accordingly. The non-negotiable is student learning, and what is negotiable is the program. Perhaps, herein lies one of the major sources of frustration for many teachers. Having the flexibility to design one’s own program often leads principals to claim a license to implement any program, regardless of whether it complies with state law concerning bilingual education or not, as long as it will lead to increased English test scores among language minority students.

Finally, Dr. Zamora argued for restructuring the system. Does the system include the state agency and its approach and strategies for leading our efforts to an improved educational system? If the agency perceives the need for change, just like Dr. Zamora’s, then, we can begin to feel confident that our leaders at the policy-making levels are indeed worthy of our following.

Advocates of this system may argue about the need for high-stakes testing and the “shape up or perish” approach inherent in the current system. However, in a performance-based accountability system, there is greater responsibility to accurately and appropriately determine what needs to be assessed, and assessment is crucial to educational reform. It is often noted as a driving force behind the wheels of change. With Dr. Zamora’s support, we can successfully accomplish the important goals of ensuring that our programs are the very best for our students. After all, as Dr. Zamora said, when we don’t change our practices to reflect what we know contributes to more learning than we shortchange students, we are not doing our students any favors.

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Table 1: INTERVIEW SUMMARIES

INTERVIEWEES	REFLECTION SUMMARIES
Ms. Espinosa, Elementary School Principal	Promising Initiatives: School-Wide literacy projects; Promotion of the importance of community’s role in the educational process by involving parents and incorporating the native language and culture into the school culture; Re-location of computers from the Computer Room to the classrooms; Mult-age schooling; Focus on developing positive and productive teacher-teacher and teacher-student relationships.   Effective Strategies: Creation and effective use of faculty advisory; Providing a nurturing environment for teachers as leaders; Applying a well-anchored philosophy that includes child centered curriculum, a balanced reading program, valuing and incorporating children’s language and culture in the curriculum, and governance by team management.
Ms. Hidalgo, Elementary School Principal	Innovative Initiatives: Clustering or teaming of teachers and students across grade levels that serve to provide a cohesive yet diverse program to meet the varied needs of the students; Providing for gradual implementation of new ideas that included preparation time for about a year with focused staff development research and site visits to other model programs; Seeking support from the community and organizations for donated funds to send staff and parents to visit other programs and parents attended information meetings; Viewing implementation plans is an ongoing process, encouraging the school counselor to play a role of intermediary to ensure communication takes place; Maintaining low retention rates among students and carefully screening language minority students upon referrals for special education; Careful screening of prospective teachers by employing panel interviews to ensure an effective process for hiring teachers.
Ms. Escamilla, Elementary School Principal	Lessons Learned: Many changes are needed in the system; however, there are ways to beat the system and persistence may pay off; Principals and teachers need to be well-informed of the research in bilingual education and know how to implement it Teachers must have ownership in the educational programs and principals must facilitate that process; Teachers and principals must establish reliance and trust so that teachers know that their principal is behind them and vice versa; Principals play key roles in providing educational equity to underrepresented students; an accountability system should address the effectiveness of principals in that process; Principals have the prerogative of establishing ground rules and determining what is negotiable and what is not in designing and implementing change; however the effectiveness of this process depends on the principals being well-informed and experienced in bilingual education.
Mr. González, High School Principal	Successful Action: Promoting ESL strategies and activities in all of their content area courses; Adding a fifth year to their program to accommodate the needs of their pre-literate students; Working with the feeder middle school to help improve the transitional process for students; Working with the community to increase their involvement in the education of the students; Presenting a forum for teacher self-expression called the Family Advisory Committee.
Dr. Roberto Zamora, Executive Assistant to the State Commissioner of Education	Leadership Qualities: The need for changing the role of the principal to a well-informed instructional leader, manager, and problem-solver, skillful in implementing change; The importance of consensus decision-making, developing partnerships and collaborations; The need to respond appropriately to the culturally and linguistically diverse student populations in our schools.

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They analyze their data to identify similarities or differences, changes, patterns, or themes, draw inferences from their data, make conclusions, and translate their discoveries into action plans.Unfortunately, these daily investigations and reflections are often not perceived by professional educators as research due to three widely held misconceptions. First, research is considered a precise and highly scientific system of specific methods and procedures conducted for the purpose of generating a body of educational knowledge. Second, it is believed that research cannot be done without statistics. Third, research is seen as a monolithic, unitary block that must be absorbed whole, or not at all.

However, all three of these perceptions are misconceptions. Research may be conducted for various purposes, ranging from describing existing circumstances or problems to making administrative or curricular decisions about specific individuals, programs, or groups. Far from being a single system of methods and procedures, there are more than a dozen currently recognized categories of methodologies for conducting research in education. About half of these methodologies are neither precise nor scientific, although all of them are rigorous and each has its own way of ensuring the validity of results.

As for statistics, only a few research categories, primarily experimental, quasi-experimental, correlational, survey, mega-analysis, and retrospective chart studies, rely to any great extent on statistical validation or inference. In fact, statistics is a relatively recent addition to educational research, adopted from agriculture in the early decades of the 20th century to provide researchers with a way of summarizing and validating the differences and similarities among groups of highly variable individuals.

Furthermore, research does not have to be undertaken in one big gulp. There are at least four different levels of research, each of which can be complete in itself. Table 2 (below) briefly summarizes the four levels and provides examples of research that falls into each category. Educators typically carry out the body of knowledge for each level of education. It began as a collection of professional lore generated by principals and teachers from their daily experiences and shared orally with others. This practice continued until we needed to demonstrate that teaching was a respectable profession. Research became so esoteric and demanding that only specialists could do it.

Currently, that change is reversing. Today, the natural study of educational processes and the teacher’s role as a researcher have once again made it not only acceptable but also imperative for educational practitioners to become involved in the design, conduct, and publication of research. As a case in point, all principals who receive this publication are invited to participate in a stimulus-response survey study of reactions to the Texas statewide accountability system. In this study, persons of varying characteristics in similar but not necessarily identical settings are asked to react to the same stimulus. Their responses to the stimulus are then examined in various ways. If you would like to participate, you will need to read Dr. Guadarrama’s article beginning on page 42 in this issue and then complete the survey questionnaire below.

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Table 2: Four Levels of Research

Level	Major Purpose or Activity	Types of Issues Addressed	Typical Questions Researched by Educators
Descriptive	Collect and Summarize Data	What is (was) the situation or problem? What is (was) happening or changing?	Can María hear the difference between “sh” and “ch”? What are the fourth grade students’ reading interests?
Internal Application	Detect and Validate Internal Relationships, Differences, or Results	What are the important themes? What is causing which to happen? How did the change evolve?	What are the differences between the science motives of boys and girls? José reads better this year. Is it because of my new program, he’s a year older, or his Dad said he’d punish him if he flunked?
External Generalization	Determine whether findings or results are valid	Will the same results come about in different circumstances?	Will this program that worked for my students help students in other classes or schools?
Theoretical Research	Generate, extend, or test a theory	Is there some underlying principle? What links or explains these happenings?	Does praise result in more effective learning than does punishment? Is the principal’s leadership style important to the school’s success?

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In Texas alone, nearly 400,000 school-aged children qualify for bilingual education or ESL programs.* However, this figure does not encompass children who have been removed or exited from bilingual education programs but still require instructional support before being fully integrated into an all-English language curriculum. The most recent report from the Texas Education Agency Accountability Office has cast doubt on stakeholders’ belief that education genuinely facilitates access to a superior quality of life. The report evaluated schools and their respective districts based on students’ test scores on state-administered assessments, categorizing them into exemplary, recognized, accredited, unacceptable, and clearly unacceptable performance levels. As anticipated, the majority of ‘unacceptable’ districts and campuses are those with a significant proportion of language minority or ethnic minority students, while the recognized districts and schools are predominantly suburban schools with a majority of White students.

There were few surprises in this report, as it closely resembled the public disclosures of years past, where districts and campuses were hierarchically ranked based on achievement test scores. Fairness to the plan, however, it’s too early to determine its full impact on educational programs for language minority students. Nevertheless, some preliminary observations point to its ineffectiveness, particularly regarding the method used to determine which schools are performing well and which are not, and its effectiveness as part of an educational reform plan.

Firstly, it’s important to recognize that, as state officials have often reminded us, the accountability plan was initiated as a result of a mandate from the legislature, specifically Senate Bill 7*. The bill states that the plan should provide a) a framework for evaluating and improving educational performance and b) a comprehensive integrated framework for the system that will be used to accredit school districts. These mandates are intended to provide the impetus for continual improvement in student performance through “public disclosure of results and the application of specific, sequential rewards, sanctions, and technical support interventions to districts and campuses statewide” (TEA, 1993, p.3). The basis for an accountability system is common among most states across the nation, stemming from an increasing public outcry to improve our educational system. However, the development of the specific plan is the task of the Accountability Office under the direction of the State Commissioner of Education, Dr. Lionel R. Meno. The State Board of Education was presented with proposed academic excellence indicators and subsequently approved them. The Texas Education Agency utilized these indicators in its accountability plan to base its ratings and accreditation system. These seven indicators comprise the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), a set of criterion-referenced tests.

The current plan requires students in third grade to take the math and reading sections, fourth graders to take the content area and writing sections, and eighth and tenth graders to take all sections. Attendance is also a key indicator, with a 97% average yearly attendance rate being specified. Additionally, the dropout rate is calculated as the total number of dropouts in grades seven through 12 divided by the number of students enrolled in those grades for more than 30 consecutive days. High school end-of-course exams in Algebra 1 and Biology are required to be administered in 1993 and 1994. Furthermore, the percentage of graduating students passing the TASP equivalency, or simply the number of students passing the TAAS exam in high school who subsequently received their high school diploma, is another important indicator. Lastly, the high school graduation rate, which is the percentage of students taking and passing the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT), is also a key factor in the evaluation of school districts.

Academic excellence indicators are distinct from one another, but collectively, they represent the same thing: students who struggle to pass all parts of the TAAS exam tend to skip school regularly, perform poorly in science and math, lack college aspirations, and drop out when they fail the exit TAAS exam. The lack of variability in these indicators results in a biased and narrow view of school performance levels, similar to the assessment practices criticized as socially irresponsible, according to Monty Neil, associate director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, (1993). Neil argues that a socially responsible assessment system first and foremost helps children learn and focuses on the relationship between students and teachers. Additionally, the results should be useful to both teachers and students in improving that relationship.

A socially responsible assessment system is fair and equitable, avoiding labeling or pigeonholing children. Doing so is an injustice to their lives and the community, potentially causing serious harm. Fairness demands a flexible assessment system, not a standardized one, to serve students from diverse cultures equally well. An equitable plan promotes high standards while allowing students to take diverse routes to alternative destinations. Above all, equity emphasizes the importance of not using tests as the sole basis for making decisions about students, despite their inherent claim of fairness and equity.

However, the state accountability plan falls short of these principles. It is unfair and inequitable because it systematically pushes out the marginal student, particularly the student on the brink who needs the most help, such as the students with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and students from low-income families who speak a different language and have access to a different cultural capital incompatible with the schools. The plan considers only a narrow view of these students’ achievements or failures in their schooling process.

In its attempt to improve educational standards, the plan seeks success by publicly denouncing the efforts of teachers, principals, and parents in schools with large populations of ethnic and language minority students, labeling them as failures. It also keeps students who satisfactorily complete the exit TAAS exam from receiving an earned diploma, effectively marginalizing them. Students, especially those from low-performing schools, face harsh realities beyond the classroom. These schools, once considered safe havens, are now stressful and restrictive, often failing to provide the necessary support for students to achieve the success they’ve struggled to attain. The accountability plan, while potentially raising test scores, may not address the root causes of student failure. It risks losing students to dropout statistics as well as dedicated teachers who lose confidence in their leaders.

To illustrate the accountability plan’s failure to consider its impact on students’ learning and curriculum/language policy, let’s consider a real-life scenario in one of the so-called low-performing accredited schools. Ms. D, a third-grade teacher, has a diverse classroom of students who span the entire linguistic spectrum. Some are Spanish monolingual, while others are Spanish dominant or equally proficient in both languages. All require the special teaching skills that Ms. D has acquired through her experiences and education.

Due to state policy, students who are second language learners (EB)** are waived from taking the TAAS exam for one year. This means that Ms. D can continue providing her students with the most effective pedagogy, utilizing both their native language and English as a second language strategies. These strategies help her students achieve academically and develop proficiency in English.

However, the following year, in fourth grade, these students will be tested in social studies, science content, and writing skills in English. To excel in these tests, students must master the social and academic levels of English, which are beyond the beginning and intermediate levels. Even some students at the advanced level have shown that it takes five to seven years to acquire the academic language.

In her own experience working with second language learners, Ms. D understands the challenges these students face. She knows that they need more than just academic language skills; they need a comprehensive approach that addresses their linguistic and cultural needs. Ms. D knows that her students must acquire the English language to pass the TAAS exams the following year. She has to decide whether to teach her students using a learner-centered approach, relying on their readiness to transition from their native language to English, or to provide a skewed curriculum and teach to the test. Her principal, under pressure from the district central offices for receiving a low-performance rating, resolves Ms. D’s dilemma to some extent by ordering teachers to transition children from their native language to English, regardless of their state of readiness. However, it seems that Ms. D’s professional judgment concerning the curriculum and pedagogy must be suspended or realigned to accommodate an accountability plan that has clearly overstepped its boundaries and is now the driving force behind curriculum decisions. In deciding when children in bilingual education should be transitioned, the plan demands that teachers forestall their professional judgment and follow orders.

The state’s accountability plan has several consequences for districts and schools that fail to increase student test scores. These include evaluation visits by local practitioners trained by the division of accreditation, who should assist campuses according to a specific plan established by that office. The appointment of a monitor, master management team, or board of managers to oversee district and low-performing campus operations, paid by the district, is another consequence. The most serious consequences for districts and campuses that remain in the accredited, warned, or low-performing category for two or more years are district annexation or campus closure, where the commissioner can join the district with another or close a campus and assign students to another campus that adequately meets their educational needs. There are several concerns regarding the intervention measures developed to disrupt schools that fail to comply with mandates. The means of helping districts improve or perish indicate the system’s reliance on external entities rather than facilitating the systematic development of districts or individual campuses. Internal means to identify problems and find unique solutions are lacking, and the idea that schools can be improved by people other than principals is problematic.

Teachers often overlook the valuable contributions and resources available, as well as the unique school culture of each institution. More importantly, the prevailing message of distrust inherent in the mandate is evident to teachers, principals, and parents. Ironically, the high-stakes testing and drastic, unrealistic threats of district annexation and school closures may be ineffective in changing teacher and principal behavior, especially in schools with large numbers of language minority students. Consider a recent national survey conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which found that nearly 80% of the teachers interviewed believe that most of the causes of student school failure are due to factors beyond their control, such as lack of parental support, deficiencies in nutrition, and so on. In 1990, a large number of teachers tended to blame other factors rather than themselves. The only real victims of such an accountability system are the students, who are left in a state of panic. Their teachers are demoralized, disgruntled, and distrustful. Their principals demand a back-to-basics curriculum and an extrinsic transition from their native language to English. Furthermore, whatever progress was made in promoting professionalism and shared decision-making through site-based management must also be suspended.

What Type of System is Required?

Accountability plans that facilitate productivity in the educational process, are based on sound pedagogical practices, and adhere to research findings are deemed the most effective. Accountability systems were established to assist schools in their efforts to provide the most effective education possible for all of their students. Some authors, such as Richard Schlechty (1990), contend that accountability systems are primarily promoted by business leaders who appear to doubt that teachers are working to their full potential. Schlechty has also observed that teachers and administrators who protest or criticize the system are often perceived as irresponsible and attempting to evade accountability, which may explain why teachers and principals’ voices of protest are rarely heard.

Accountability systems are most effective when they are well-coordinated and balanced with other divisional programs at the state, local, and professional levels, such as professional development and bilingual/ESL education. Furthermore, it would be more practical to shift the roles of accreditation staff from their current authoritative positions to those of facilitators and coordinators. These two aspects of an accountability system that facilitates change within schools and professional development of our leaders are briefly addressed in the following sections.

Facilitating Change Within Schools

Over the past decade of educational reform, it has been established that a top-down approach to facilitating change is ineffective in improving education. Instead, the emerging focus is on change tailored to the unique culture of each individual school and the collaborative efforts of school staff to bring about the necessary change (Schmoker & Wilson, 1993; Barth, 1990; Lieberman, 1988; Fullan, 1982; Reaves & Griffith, 1992).

For schools to improve from within, they must be provided with effective assistance. When schools develop into communities of learners and engage in the development of self-assessment profiles, the process can be structured to facilitate change from the bottom up. This approach not only helps schools become more effective but also enables the collection of ongoing evaluative data (Guadarrama, 1992 and in press).

Accountability systems that facilitate this process directly or indirectly can be productive and positive. To assist in this process, a modified model of intervention for the state Accountability Office must be created. Policy must be implemented in a way that facilitates internally controlled bottom-up management.

Leadership Development

To improve the educational experience for all students, especially those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, significant transformations are essential at all levels and in every aspect of the educational process. One of the most crucial changes required is in the leadership development of principals. Leadership development, restructuring, or reforming schools has undergone a significant redefinition in the emerging literature on this topic. In his book, “Leadership for Tomorrow’s Schools,” Patterson (1993) defines leadership as “the process of influencing others to achieve mutually agreed-upon purposes for the organization.” Patterson emphasizes that developing leadership skills in our leaders is a lengthy and intensive process. Influencing others implies that persuasion and interaction prevail over bossing and coercion.

Achieving mutually agreed-upon purposes implies that the goals are supported by those involved and, in turn, support individuals in leadership positions. Patterson asserts that tomorrow’s leaders value a) the active participation of all members of an organization in any discussion or decision affecting them, including diversity in perspectives; b) employees acknowledging mistakes and learning through research, applying technology, and utilizing evaluation data to improve performance; and c) employees recognizing and capitalizing on leverage points to enhance student learning. Patterson outlines several key components of leadership development: reflective practice, which involves giving and receiving feedback while considering past and current actions in light of new information; supporting collegiality, which entails using group process, networking, team building, and fostering trust-building and collaboration; creating leadership density, which involves recognizing and nurturing leadership growth; and identifying leverage points, which entails recognizing and capitalizing on leverage to improve student learning.

Leadership development is paramount in fostering and sustaining innovation that enhances the educational process. Consequently, the imperative for creative and well-trained leaders should be a top priority in schools serving language minority students. Professional development leaders must direct their attention towards staff development strategies and activities that are campus-based and contribute to the creation or nurturing of communities of learners. Leadership at the state level holds particular significance in assisting school districts in their endeavors to ensure that all principals are not only well-informed of research data and state rulings pertaining to bilingual aid and other programs for language minority students but are also implementing the most effective and innovative strategies available.

In conclusion, educational reform will undoubtedly persist for an extended period. Reflecting on lessons learned is crucial if we are to allocate our valuable resources in the most effective manner, ultimately achieving the best possible outcomes. However, if we narrow our evaluative focus excessively and disregard the diverse challenges inherent in teaching language minority children, we risk diminishing our professionalism. Above all, we must not shortchange our students in the pursuit of goals as strictly defined by the state agency. Language minority students deserve an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream. Nevertheless, we must question whether the current policies and programs are facilitating or hindering their progress. Given that thousands of students rely on us, educators and policymakers, to help them realize their dreams, it is imperative that we engage in critical and thoughtful decision-making at every stage of the process.

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*Note: Senate Bill 7 has been replaced with House Bill 8: “House Bill 8 (HB 8), passed during the 89th Texas Legislature, 2nd Called Session (2025), repeals and replaces the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR®) beginning with the 2027–28 school year.” https://tea.texas.gov/about-tea/news-and-multimedia/correspondence/taa-letters/overview-of-house-bill-8-0

*Update: The National Center for Education Statistics has the most recent demographic information. In the fall of 2021, English Language Learners (ELs) comprised 10 percent or more of the public school students in 13 states. The three states with the most ELs are: Texas with 20.2 percent, California, 18.9 percent, and New Mexico, 18.8 percent. According to the latest data from Texas Education Agency, in Texas, 95.7% of school districts serve students identified as emergent bilingual students; 23 percent are ELs. Just over 1.2 million ELs are enrolled in Texas public schools.

**The label “LEP” was replaced with EB (Emergent Bilingual).

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References

Barth, R. S. (1990). Improving schools from within. Jossey-Bass.

Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting students. Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework. California State University, Evaluation, Dissemination, and Assessment Center.

Fullan, M. G. (1982). The meaning of educational change. Teacher’s College Press.

Guadarrama, I. N. (1992). Self-Assessment profiles facilitate decision-making in bilingual education. Mentor Teacher Network, Texas Woman’s University. 1(4), 4-5.

Guadarrama, I. N. (In Press). Building communities of learners: The new role of the university in the preparation of bilingual education teachers. Compendium of readings in bilingual education: Issues, and practices.

Lieberman, A. (Ed.). (1988). Building professional cultures in schools. Teacher’s College Press.

Neill, M. (1993, September). A better way to test. The Executive Educator, 24-27.

Patterson, J. L. (1993). Leadership for tomorrow’s schools. ASCD.

Reaves, C., & Griffith, H. (1992). Restructuring schools. Technomic Publishing.

Schlechty, P. (1990). Schools for the 21^st century: Leadership imperatives for educational reform. Jossey-Bass.

Schmoker, M., & Wilson, R. (1993). Transforming schools through total quality education. Phi Delta Kappan, 74(5), 389-395.

Texas Education Agency. (1993). Statewide accountability system.

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