Money Helps: Title I and ESL funding | Professional Development

a student Money Helps: Title I and ESL funding

As in many turnaround tales, money has played its part in the Warm Springs transformation. In 1996, Smith proposed to the state that the entire school be classified as a Title I school. "So many of our kids are at risk," she says. "We decided early on we wanted to use the Title I funds as we saw fit rather than targeting a few kids."

The redistribution of funds means, for example, that classroom assistants can team-teach language arts in each grade to bring up reading scores. Individual and small group tutoring can be offered to students who do not meet the state benchmarks. Title I funds also provide parent resources such as Family Math & Science Nights, and support the popular Book Bucks program, which awards "money" for the purchase of books to children who show exemplary behavior such as good work, kindness, or courteousness.

However, even with a stable staff, better behaved students, and aligned curricula, the achievement scores of Warm Springs students stayed perennially low. In an effort to uncover the cause, Smith discovered research showing that Native American children whose culture is based on another language — even if that language is no longer spoken — are dealing with language-loss issues that affect their learning.

Smith knew that many of the grandparents on the reservation today grew up in boarding schools in the 1940s and '50s, when they were forbidden to speak their native language. Although that generation learned to speak enough English to meet basic communicative needs, their language learning tended to stall, or "fossilize," once they left school. They used what remained of their native language with one another, but with their own children — the parents of present-day Warm Springs students — they tended to use their limited English. This practice created a second, and then a third, generation of non-fluent English speakers who have no second language.

According to the research, the low academic achievement of Native American students is directly linked to their incomplete proficiency in either English or a native language. "We knew there was a problem here," says Johnson, "but we've never had anyone who could figure out what is was, or what to do. Dawn was able to define the problem."

With input from Johnson, Smith submitted a proposal to the Oregon Department of Education outlining why 98 percent of Warm Springs children should be classified as English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students. The state agreed, and the bilingual funding dollars that subsequently flowed into district coffers have made an enormous difference to the school. Smith enumerates some of the benefits: ESL training for all Warm Springs staff; the purchase of reading and math curricula such as Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math; creation of a schoolwide, monthlong summer academy rich in experiential learning and language activities; and ESL classroom assistants to support the tribal language program. The funds have also helped the school purchase "an amazing number of books," Smith adds.

Three years ago, as part of a new Heritage Language Program, native language speakers from the community began teaching kindergartners Sahaptin, the Warm Springs language, for a half-hour each day. The teachers carried over the instruction with the children as they went into first grade, and began with the new group of kindergartners. This year, the Wasco and Northern Paiute languages have been added, and next year every child from K-4 will have a daily, half-hour heritage language lesson. (See Small Things Count for Big Things.)

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