28393: Hermantin(News)Dueling Languages (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted May 1, 2006

Biscayne Boulevard Times


Morningside Elementary:
Dueling Languages
The Debate Over a Proposed
Dual-Language Program

By Christian Cipriani
BBT Editor

With the volunteer program at Morningside Elementary, which the BBT and other 
news outlets have reported on in recent months, failing to shape up as many 
hoped, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is mediating an alternative 
solution: Turn Morningside into a dual-language magnet school by the start of 
the next school year.

An April 17 meeting between parents and school board officials was supposed to 
resolve how the languages
CAST YOUR VOTE
Morningside parents will receive a survey sent home with the student, but 
non-parent community members can weigh in on the dual-language program at the 
school’s library media center, May 2, 3 and 4, from 9 a.m. to noon; proof of 
address required. Morningside Elementary is located at 6620 N.E. 5th Ave.

would be chosen and how the citizenry would contribute to that process. At 
present, school officials and community members are debating between Spanish, 
Creole and French, with two slated as core offerings and one an elective. But 
not everyone is happy about these choices, and here’s what the two sides are 
saying:

The Cons of Creole
With the volunteer program stalling before ever leaving the gate, parents and 
teachers hope the dual-language initiative will help raise a troubling 
statistic: Only 35 percent of students leave Morningside reading at grade 
level. While similar programs have revived schools in other areas, this latest 
initiative to fix problems at Morningside has raised a complex dilemma: What 
languages should be at the program’s core?

Kathryn Mikesell, a school activist who spearheaded efforts to establish the 
volunteer program, argued that Mandarin Chinese would be more applicable than 
Creole, giving children “an edge when it comes to succeeding in our global 
economy.”

But according to Mikesell, “People at the April 17 meeting made this into a 
race issue.” Wendy Stephan, a Buena Vista East activist and mother who sends 
her first-grader to South Point Elementary in Miami Beach, agreed: “MDCPS 
officials had their heads in their hands. When things become a race issue, 
there’s no way anyone can win.”

Morningside Elementary serves a large and diverse community, from Baypoint near 
N.E. 36th Street, stretching north to N.E. 79th Street, and from N.E. 4th Court 
east to Biscayne Bay.

Haitians account for almost 70 percent of the student body and Hispanics almost 
30 percent, with a negligible percentage of seats occupied by Caucasians and 
others. According to Mikesell, whose young children will likely never attend 
the school, the debate is complicated by the fact that for the past four years 
it’s been “mostly whites” fighting to bring Morningside out of C-rating status.

Now, faced with the question of language, Mikesell believes previously inactive 
community members are arguing from a standpoint of cultural protectionism by 
advocating for Creole, racializing the debate against those questioning 
Creole’s usefulness, who claim to be doing so from an economic and educational 
standpoint.
In a dual-language environment, children are statistically more likely to excel 
by learning in their native language. If Morningside’s majority 
Haitian-American population chose the Creole track, they would learn in English 
for 60 percent of the day, and for the remaining 40 percent learn Creole 
language, history and conduct entire subjects exclusively in that language.

Similarly, Hispanic children on the Spanish track would spend almost half the 
day learning in their native tongue. Lessons in the third language, which in 
Morningside’s case may be French, would be offered to students at an optional 
Saturday Academy.

Making the two core languages of a dual-language magnet school the two native 
tongues of 99 percent its students is a seemingly obvious choice, but not the 
best solution according to some. Detractors cite two limitations: Creole is 
predominately a spoken language, and it is virtually irrelevant as a social or 
economic tool outside of South Florida and Haiti.

If the goal is to arm children with worldly adaptability, Mandarin, English, 
Hindustani, Spanish and Russian are the world’s most widely spoken languages, 
while French and German are heavy-hitters in global business.


Dual-Language Perhaps Not the Solution
But is language-as-tool the concern of early education? According to Fedo 
Boyer, the Haitian-American owner of CreoleTrans, a company which provides 
translation services to, among other clients, MDCPS, early education should 
capitalize on the preexisting conditions of the child’s life, which for the 
majority of Morningside students is a Creole-English upbringing. To him, the 
question of educational language should not factor in economic advantage at 
such a young age, but concern itself more with helping a child become a good 
learner.

Boyer, a resident of the Little Haiti/Buena Vista area, also noted that “what 
will best serve one in the global market” was the rationale for teaching 
Haitians exclusively in French for nearly 200 years – Creole as a part of 
Haitian education and society in general is a relatively new development.

So while children of Haitians already have their foot in the door of the French 
language, which is certainly more useful in the global sense, it is unlikely 
Haitian parents will advocate the mother tongue of a long-time colonial 
oppressor as a core language.
According to Boyer, the circumstances of Haitian-Americans are quite unlike 
those of Hispanics. For a dual-language program to be effective, Boyer argues 
that as much needs to happen at home as in school, and Haitian parents are 
simply not as literate as parents from Hispanic and Caucasian backgrounds.

Whereas a Hispanic child could likely take an assignment in Spanish home and 
discuss it with a parent, such is not the case for most Haitian-American 
children, many of whose parents, if at all educated, received training in both 
French and Creole.

Boyer acknowledged that one argument for Creole as a core language at 
Morningside is culturally motivated: Parents of the majority student population 
want their kids to embrace, learn about and be proud of their Haitian 
background, which could well encourage greater achievement.

The question, he believes, is not what the core languages should be, but 
whether or not the structure of a dual-language program will really benefit a 
majority of students by addressing the root of underperformance. Morningside 
already offers students struggling with English alternative lessons in Creole, 
but despite this, grade-level literacy hasn’t budged.

Boyer’s experience as an educator in Miami-Dade County has allowed him to 
observe a pattern of factors common to underperformance: Poor parents who are 
uneducated and speak little English are most likely to produce children who 
struggle with education. A dual-language program cannot address a weak parental 
support structure, which is detrimental to the success of this approach to 
learning.

Gepsie Metellus, director of Sant La, a Haitian neighborhood organization at 
5000 Biscayne Blvd., has a slightly different take: She agrees that language at 
the elementary level is about establishing a framework for learning, but she 
has a softer opinion of Haitian parents’ capabilities, and believes in the 
potential of a dual-language program:
“It stands to reason that there must be someone in a child’s household to 
correct them in the native language. Competence and relative mastery of a 
native language by a student can occur too without parental mastery.”

And although she is a vocal supporter of Creole as a core language, she insists 
she’s “not pushing for any one language,” but a means to improve the general 
state of education at Morningside.

Metellus exemplifies the tempered Haitian perspective – positive in her support 
of the majority of students learning in their native tongue, but not blindly 
clinging to the familiarity of one’s roots, roots the Haitian community 
struggles to nurture here on foreign soil:
“This is about more than heritage: It’s about mastery of language, and mastery 
of language development. Basic education should be mastered in one’s native 
tongue, and this program will help kids better develop language and learning in 
general, giving them a fighting chance to be fully bilingual and bi-literate.”
Community Input

But to assume for a moment that a dual-language program will commence, the last 
issue of debate is who should have input. Despite officials’ plans to welcome 
the views of parents and community members in general, Metellus argued against 
this:
“In general, when there’s an issue regarding a school, it’s the parents of 
students who are afforded opportunity to give feedback. While I welcome the 
input of everyone, because I know everyone just wants to improve the school, I 
want there to be a mechanism which allows parents of students to be heard.”

The decision to consider all community members is not unprecedented: A similar 
method was used for the foreign language program at Emerson Elementary, and 
isn’t as detrimental a method as Metellus thinks. According to Wendy Stephan, 
the languages are not the issue for her; having a local, quality alternative to 
sending her kids to school in Miami Beach is:

“I don’t live within the boundaries… but this is a community issue, we need to 
fight for quality education. If that program took off it would be an attractive 
option.”
The BBT offered MDCPS the chance to run a survey in Creole, English and Spanish 
in this issue, one which residents could cut out, complete and mail back to the 
school district, and on it indicate their language preferences.

Joseph Garcia, chief communications officer for MDCPS Superintendent Rudy Crew, 
replied to the BBT’s suggestion in an email statement, which read in part: “We 
will be surveying parents very soon on which permutation of the three languages 
is preferred. I believe there are better ways to reach out than the one you 
propose.”

On April 25 the school district reached a solution: A parent survey in English, 
Spanish and Creole was sent home with students (one for each student, even if 
from the same family) on May 1, which parents can complete and return by May 4. 
A School Improvement Zone administrator will be in the library’s media center 
on May 2, 3 and 4, from 9 a.m. to noon, to collect the views of non-parent 
community members. Proof of address is required. The tallying of results will 
occur after school is dismissed on May 4, to which the public is invited.

Send feedback to editorial@biscayneboulevard.com