The programs established in 2016 have just started to add fifth graders, and as students progress, they are outperforming their peers in English immersion on the ILEARN and other benchmark tests, said Chief Academic Officer Troy Knoderer. The district started with kindergarten and first grade classes, then added one grade level per year.Ībout 15% of Lawrence’s English learners, most of whom are Hispanic, are enrolled in dual-language classrooms, according to the district. The new schools would only enroll Spanish speakers, providing Spanish-speaking teachers to instruct them primarily in their first language for the first few years. The district already had a popular two-way dual-language immersion program at Forest Glen Elementary. In light of this research, Lawrence Township launched additional dual-language programs for English learners at six elementary schools five years ago, and added a second two-way program the next year. Patricia Gándara, an education professor at UCLA, said new research in the past five years has decisively found bilingual education to be more effective than traditional English immersion for teaching English. Racial gaps are also apparent - Hispanic students trailed their white classmates by 35 percentage points on the tests.Īs Indianapolis’ Hispanic population growth shows little sign of slowing, schools face an important question: How should they adjust curriculum and culture to best serve all students and to address learning gaps? Just 7.4% of Lawrence English learners in grades 3-8 passed the English and math portions of the ILEARN exam in 2019, compared with 31% of non-English learners. But while each school has its own approach to teaching Spanish speakers, they share one thing in common: severe academic gaps for Hispanic students and English learners. Lawrence is an outlier among Indianapolis districts, most of which offer little or no dual-language instruction, instead relying on traditional methods of English immersion and pulling students out of class for English tutoring.
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