L.A. Board Delays Debate on Ebonics

Trying to gingerly sidestep the Ebonics controversy, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday put off debating a proposal to train all 32,000 teachers in how to better cope with students who use African American speech patterns.

Without comment, the board sent the resolution to committee for review and revision. But with national media attention and with protesters hovering both inside and outside board chambers, it was impossible to avoid at least a taste of the dispute touched off last month when Oakland school board members approved a similar measure aimed at improving black student performance.

“English is European, therefore you believe it’s superior,” kindergarten teacher Gloria Williams-Mitchell told the white-majority Los Angeles school board, speaking in favor of the proposal.

Among the opponents were Latino activists who said they fear that the nation’s second-largest district would dip into bilingual education funds for Ebonics.

A group of conservative blacks also held a news conference to oppose the proposal, charging that the push to expand existing Ebonics programs is a plot by liberal black leaders to maintain an “ignorant” populace and pad public coffers.

“This is selling out the black children and their future for the almighty federal dollar,” said Roxanne Petteway, who said she works with Project 21, a national alliance of anti-discrimination organizations.

Trustee Barbara Boudreaux, the board’s lone African American, introduced the proposal and said she expected it to pass out of committee later this month and back to the board in February. But other board members said there is a movement afoot to ward off any public outcry until after a school construction bond appears on the April ballot.

A majority of board members have expressed concern that Boudreaux’s resolution was too narrowly focused, and called for it to embrace others struggling with standard English, such as those who speak “Spanglish.” Though the district’s African American students continue to fare the worst on standardized tests, Latinos, who make up two-thirds of the system’s enrollment, are not far ahead of them.

“It would have to be all-inclusive,” said board member George Kiriyama.

After Monday’s delay, Boudreaux said she would be willing to expand the resolution to include all students with language obstacles. She also said she would rely on the district’s superintendent to identify teachers who needed the specialized training.

That change, however, may not sit well with the district’s teachers’ union, which had tentatively supported her more sweeping training proposal.

For weeks, many have questioned why Boudreaux dived into the debate, especially when Los Angeles Unified already has several programs aimed at helping African Americans who speak nonstandard English, including a language development program now in 31 schools at an annual cost of $2.9 million.

Boudreaux maintains that Oakland’s action on the issue presented an opening to expand such programs to all Los Angeles schools in order to reach all 93,000 African American students.

However, she had tried to avoid some of the backlash that followed Oakland’s vote through more careful wording. Though her resolution does declare Ebonics a different language, it does not use Oakland’s description of a “genetically based language,” nor does it call for teaching in Ebonics.

Oakland has deleted those phrases from a revised version of its policy, which is expected to be approved Wednesday.

Boudreaux’s resolution, written with input from dozens of African American education and political leaders, called for expanding the use of teaching approaches currently employed in bilingual programs to help African American students learn mainstream English.

Some board members have challenged the wisdom of pouring more money into methods for which there is no proof of success, however. The Language Development Program for African American Students, in particular, has never been formally evaluated.

The director of that 5-year-old program, Noma LeMoine, said the district has failed black youth by ignoring the problems.