If you believe investing in children is the best way to ensure a bright future, then I hope you share my outrage over the Lynn School Committee’s decision to not mandate English as a Second Language (ESL) licensure for public school kindergarten teachers.
The committee on March 25 voted 4-3 to reject School Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler’s proposal, initially unveiled at a March 11 subcommittee meeting, to require ESL licenses for new kindergarten teachers and to provide a two-year window for kindergarten teachers now on the job to obtain the license.
Tutwiler, an intelligent and forthright leader who is one of the school department’s most valuable assets, supported his proposal with statistics presented to committee members by Rania Caldwell, the school district’s English Language Learner (ELL) Education director.
Caldwell’s numbers highlighted the rapid increase in non-English-speaking enrollment in kindergarten and the stunning revelation that Lynn kindergarteners who do not speak English as their first language are getting roughly one-third of the English language training recommended by the state.
The “current system,” said Caldwell, is “treating ELL as a minority when they are the majority.”
Her statement and the numbers backing it up should embarrass every educator in the city and constitute no less than an emergency for every elected public official in the city.
How is it possible that the School Committee can reject a plan introduced by a well-respected educator to improve English language education for kindergartners?
If Tutwiler’s proposal and Caldwell’s numbers are flawed or inaccurate and the ELL kindergarten crisis is actually much ado about nothing, then please enlighten me.
If you want to tell me that teachers will be overburdened if they have to shoulder ESL license training, don’t waste my time.
If you care about Lynn’s future and the people who are going to shape it, then share my outrage about the committee’s decision to reject Tutwiler’s plan. Even if you are one of these people who think everybody should speak English, you should also be outraged.
If you are someone who embraces the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s warning that justice denied anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, then you share my outrage over the committee vote.
The people affected by the committee’s decision are children enrolled in one of the most formative years of their education. As Caldwell eloquently stated, ESL is a requirement for functioning in America on the same priority level as learning mathematics.
A story on vaccination rate disparities published Thursday in this newspaper cited statistics stating Spanish speakers represent 45 percent of Lynn’s population.
The mothers and fathers of the children affected by the committee’s decision are limited in their ability to speak up for their kids because: (A) Many don’t speak English; (B) some are undocumented immigrants; and (C) they have no political advocate to take up their cause.
We cannot let justice be denied or deferred in our schools. As Dr. Tutwiler told committee members on March 11, it is time to “match up our actions with our core values.”
