Young English Learners A Rising Tide in Suburbs

There are six public schools in Maryland where half or more students are identified as LEP. Among them, only Highland met this year's statewide goal of 67.5 percent reading proficiency for students of limited English ability on the Maryland School Assessment. Four other schools missed the target by at least 10 points. (One school, a primary school, does not give statewide tests.)

"I could find a better house in Prince George's," said Elsi Flores, a mother of two at Highland. "But the education here is better, I think."

Five years ago, when Myrtle arrived, Highland was in danger of "restructuring" by the state education department after several years of low test scores. In 2003, just five of 53 LEP students who took the statewide exam rated proficient in reading. This year, 88 of 116 LEP students rated proficient, a 76 percent pass rate. Students in seven other demographic subgroups did as well or better.

The classroom approach at Highland is a particularly vigorous model of English for Speakers of Other Languages, a standard immersion program that teaches students the language as they learn their academics. English language learners are taught in regular classrooms, with lessons delivered entirely in English. Nine trained ESOL teachers help students using verbal and visual cues.

"Mouse -- mouse -- m-m-m," said Marva Nieves, an ESOL teacher, working with a pair of first-grade students on a recent morning. "You have to move your lips to get the sounds. Okay?" The boys worked from small bags filled with flashcards of words they had learned in a previous lesson.

Students often arrive at Highland unable to read, write or speak fluently in Spanish or English. In response, the school has placed a growing emphasis on pre-kindergarten and Head Start, which, as of this year, is a full-day program. Sixty of this year's 97 kindergartners attended pre-K programs at Highland.

Parent participation at Back to School Night has risen from about 20 percent five years ago to 80 percent today. The turning point came when school employees began telephoning each family rather than send form letters home.

Highland offers classes for parents, not just in English and computers but also in math and study skills, because many parents "don't even know how to begin" to help their children with homework, said Jessica Tierney, who works at the school in a multi-agency program called Linkages to Learning.

There is another school-based program called Identity, in recognition that "a lot of these families have lost their identities as Salvadoran families," Myrtle said, "but they haven't quite reinvented themselves as Americans."