Sorbonne Confidential

Flaws in California's English-language programs hurt students,state's economic future, study finds

This article from the LA Times condemns failure to learn "academic English needed for success" in California. An interesting perspective viewed from France. Are there lessons to be learned?

Nearly 60% of English language learners in California’s high schools have failed to become proficient in the language despite more than six years of a U.S. education, according to a study released Thursday.

In a survey of 40 school districts, the study found that the majority of long-term English-language learners are U.S. natives who prefer English and are orally bilingual.

But they develop major deficits in reading and writing, fail to achieve the academic English needed for educational success and disproportionately drop out of high school, according to the study by Californians Together, a statewide coalition of 22 parent, professional and civil-rights organization who support English-learners.

The flaws in California’s English-language programs have placed hundreds of thousands of children in academic jeopardy, dashing their dreams for college and imperiling the state’s economic future. The off-spring of immigrants make up 55% of Los Angeles County's child population.

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

Teachers in France take heart: it's no better across the Channel --from Mr Teacher UK

Picture the scene: It is last period on a Friday, the final showdown of another long, exhausting week at the chalk-face. I am running on fumes and all I can think about is that first coffee after a lie-in on a Saturday morning. The clock seems to be going backwards. My nemesis class is in front of me, the one more than any other on the time-table that looms over me like a dark cloud and wakes me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. The register reads like a who's-who of school horror stories. And then it happens, the conversation that will surely haunt me all weekend:
 
Student: "Sir, how do you spell "education" ?

Mr Teacher: "You are twelve years old. I realise that I should help you but giving a constructive answer will force me to acknowledge the question, and my patience can't cope with that today."

Student: "Oh, ok. I know it anyway. It must be e-d-u-k-a-c-j-u-n."
 
I slump into my seat and look on as they try to colour in between the lines. I am reminded of the recent well-publicised comments made by Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy, the man at the helm of the country's largest private employer. He is rightfully concerned by the "woefully low standards in too many schools" and is frustrated that employers such as himself often need to retrain their employees in spelling and arithmetic.

From Mr. Teacher's Guest blog on Schoolgate: Does Spelling matter? What teaching is really like. (Click for full article)

Y-a-il un malaise enseignant? Etude inquiétante de la société des Agrégés

L'enquête sur le moral des professeurs du second degré, intitulée " Y a-t-il un malaise enseignant ? " dresse un tableau peu reluisant du moral des agrégés, autrefois aristocratie enseignante du secondaire, et qui se trouvent mis à bas de leur piédestal. Réalisée par la Société des agrégés (8 000 adhérents sur environ 45 000 agrégés en France) qui l'a mise en ligne, vendredi 21 mai, sur son site, elle repose sur les témoignages de plus de 400 de ses adhérents qui ont répondu à son questionnaire. Mais beaucoup de questionnaires retournés étaient inutilisables, car incomplets par crainte de représailles. Ce qui en dit long sur le moral des agrégés.

Selon  www.lemonde.fr Les agrégés n'on plus le moral 

Première raison du "malaise" : le manque de reconnaissance dans l'exercice de leur métier, ressenti par 81,2 % des sondés qui se trouvent niés dans leur posture d'intellectuels. Les agrégés seraient une caste de "fainéants"(quinze heures de cours par semaine contre dix-huit heures pour un professeur non agrégé) attachée à ses privilèges. "Faux !", répond la Société des agrégés, qui dénonce ces " poncifs "en montrant que ses adhérents sont aussi touchés par la crise qui traverse l'enseignement.

Deuxième raison : l'écart entre une formation très pointue et ce qu'il leur est souvent demandé sur le terrain. Un écart qui s'apparente à un véritable double gâchis, d'abord de temps et de coût investis lors de leurs études, puis de connaissances et de compétences non employées.

Etudiants de haut niveau, ils se sont astreints à passer un concours très difficile à décrocher et permettant, à priori (décret 72-580 du 4 juillet 1972, modifié par le décret 2007-1295 du 31 août 2007), d'enseigner en cycle terminal de lycée, classes préparatoires et enseignement supérieur. Après l'agrégation, certains ont encore passé un DEA ou un doctorat. On comprend alors leur déconvenue lorsqu'ils se retrouvent en collège… qui plus est comme enseignants" titulaires affectés sur zone de remplacement " (TZR), obligés de courir d'un établissement à l'autre plusieurs fois par semaine, au gré des remplacements.

French government audit finds education inefficient. Is change possible?

 Two years of audits and visits to 60 schools in six academies. 

Conclusion? 

Despite massive spending, the French national education system "worsens inequalities and causes too much failure".

Harsh, indeed. And yet, for anyone with children in the system, is it really a surprise?

The 200 page report from the Cours de Comptes concludes that change is imperative.

Instead of supply (class hours, teachers, budget), says the report, budgets should be based on demand (students' precise knowledge needs).  In the original French:  

"Il est désormais impératif de remplacer la logique de l'offre scolaire – qui repose sur des moyens alloués en fonction des programmes : tant d'heures de cours, qui signifient tant d'enseignants, qui signifient tel budget –, par une logique fondée sur la demande, c'est-à-dire sur une connaissance nettement plus précise des besoins des élèves", insiste le rapport.

The report goes on to list 13 proposals, including:

• Put an end to "uniform budget allocation" which hurts schools which need extra help
• Reduce the number of children held back
• Abandon the ideology of heterogenous classes 
• Change the orientation system, today wholely failure based
• Give more decision power concerning resource allocation to individual schools

All good suggestions. Will anyone in power have the courage to implement?

Can France learn from Obama's Race to the Top for school reform ?

How to reform? France seems as blocked as any country when it comes to changing failed practices. Here is an extract from a NYT's article about President Obama's Race to the Top program which distributes $4.3 billion dollars to states which propose significant reform. Is this the way ahead?

From NYT "The Teachers' Unions Last Stand" by Steven Brill

"The winners of the Race would be those states that submitted the best blueprints for fulfilling the reform agenda, which includes allowing school districts to take over failing schools, improving curriculum standards and encouraging school innovation (which means, in part, allowing charter schools to flourish). But what the reformers have come to believe matters most is good teachers. “It’s all about the talent,” Secretary Duncan told me. Thus, the highest number of points — 138 of the 500-point scale that Duncan and his staff created for the Race — would be awarded based on a commitment to eliminate what teachers’ union leaders consider the most important protections enjoyed by their members: seniority-based compensation and permanent job security. 

"To win the contest, the states had to present new laws, contracts and data systems making teachers individually responsible for what their students achieve, and demonstrating, for example, that budget-forced teacher layoffs will be based on the quality of the teacher, not simply on seniority. (Fifteen states, including New York and California, now operate under union-backed state laws mandating that seniority, or “last in/first out,” determines layoffs. These quality-blind layoffs could force a new generation of teachers, like those recruited by Teach for America, out of classrooms in the coming months.) To enable teacher evaluations, another 47 points would be allocated based on the quality of a state’s “data systems” for tracking student performance in all grades — which is a euphemism for the kind of full-bore testing regime that makes many parents and children cringe but that the reformers argue is necessary for any serious attempt to track not only student progress but also teacher effectiveness."

via www.nytimes.com

La Cour des comptes dénonce le système scolaire français - LeMonde.fr

C''est le constat dramatique d'un dysfonctionnement généralisé, de la maternelle à la fin du lycée, que tire la Cour des comptes de son analyse du système scolaire français. Présenté mercredi 12 mai lors d'une conférence de presse, le rapport de la Cour (200 pages), intitulé "L'éducation nationale face à l'objectif de la réussite de tous les élèves", repose sur deux ans d'auditions des meilleurs spécialistes de notre système éducatif et une enquête de terrain dans 60 établissements de six académies (Aix-Marseille, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Orléans-Tours, Montpellier, Paris et Versailles), ainsi qu'en Ecosse, Espagne et Suisse.

Lire l'article dans LE MONDE .

Le Figaro - France : Éducation : La Cour des comptes pointes des inégalités

C'est une première pour la Cour des comptes. Jamais, jusqu'à présent, l'institution ne s'était penchée sur les performances du système éducatif. À l'origine de cette révolution, la loi organique relative aux lois de finances, qui s'appuie sur des indicateurs de performance, et la loi d'orientation sur l'école de 2005, qui énonçait divers objectifs chiffrés. 100% d'élèves qualifiés ou diplômés à la sortie du secondaire, 80% d'élèves accédant au niveau du baccalauréat et 50% de diplômes de l'enseignement supérieur, tels étaient les engagements dans la loi Fillon de 2005. Aujourd'hui, un élève sur six sort du système sans qualification, et si 41% des jeunes sont diplômés du supérieur, ils sont 27% à obtenir un diplôme de niveau licence.

via www.lefigaro.fr

MOLAN - un réseau européen pour motiver l'apprentissage des langues étrangères | Emilangues

Convaincus que l'aquisition de compétences multilingues est à la fois un bénéfice pour les individus et pour la société, les partenaires du projet, aujourd'hui dans sa phase finale, ont progressivement constitué un réseau d'échange d'information et de bonnes pratiques pour inciter l’ensemble des jeunes européens à intégrer dans leur cursus scolaire et universitaire l’apprentissage des langues et la découverte d’autres cultures.

Concrètement, il s'agit à la fois d'encourager :
- l'apprentissage d'une seconde ou d'une troisième langue étrangère,
- l'apprentissage des langues à moindre diffusion,
- la coopération entre les secteurs scolaires et universitaires entre les pays de l'Union européenne.

via www.emilangues.education.fr

The Making of Sorbonne Confidential: Sources and Links

Many people have asked me about the sources of Sorbonne Confidential.

 Are all the incidents described true? (Yes.) What documentation was used? Is it really possible that the oral exam for English teachers in 2005 included a lecture IN FRENCH (the famous leçon) ? (Several readers have expressed disbelief on this last point.)

Readers, here are my sources. Where possible links have been provided.

(note : Le Monde de l'Education has ceased publication.)

Chapter One: Unemployed Anonymous “78 percent of French people aged 15 to 30 said the idea of becoming a civil servant was ‘attractive’... They will not have to work very long hours. They will always have decent pay. And more important they will have a job for life.” Thomas Fuller, “The Workplace: Nice Wages, Short Hours, and for Life.” International Herald Tribune, November 1, 2005

Chapter Two: Learning to Speak “Despite a succession of projects over the past fifteen years, French children remain at the bottom of international rankings for English.” --“Why French youths are so terrible in foreign languages.” -- Le Figaro, September 2, 2005 "Malgré les plans qui se succèdent depuis quinze ans, les jeunes Français se classent toujours parmi les derniers dans les palmarès internationaux [en anglais].  Pourquoi les jeunes Français sont si mauvais en langues étrangères , Le Figaro, 2 septembre 2005. "2004-2005 guide for the CAPES and agrégation d’anglais exams of Paris IV"

Chapter Three /Confessions of an English Opium Eater “Much importance was given [in 19th century France] to the form in which arguments were presented. Some cultivated hermeticism, jargon and subtleties that were incomprehensible to the uninitiated." Theodore Zeldin, Histoire des Passions Françaises 1848-1945

 Chapter Four : Pig’s feet Urgent. Wanted: Cafeteria Lady: 9.82 Euros per hour. ad on notice board outside Jules Verne Elementary School.

Chapter Five: “We have to talk” Statistics for the Agrégation 2005: Total number of subjects: 37, including arts, management, • engineering, history, foreign languages, letters, maths, music, philosophy, sciences.

Total number of candidates registered: 43,461: (external • candidates: 27,599; internal candidates: 15,862).

Total number of positions available in all subjects: 2890 • (external: 1940; internal: 950

Total number of positions available in English: 213 • (external: 145, internal:68). Agrégation externe 2005: www.education.gouv.fr

 Chapter Six: Project Manager “The agrégation is, along with the CAPES, the CAPET, and the PLP, a competitive recruitment exam for teachers in French public schools. Agrégés teach mainly in lycées (high schools), although they can also teach in universities and middle schools. There is an internal exam reserved for teachers with some seniority and an external exam that is open to candidates with a masters, CAPES, CEPET or PLP.” Wikipedia

 Chapter Seven: Fierce Chemistry “Although since 1987 the national curriculum for English has been stressing the importance of communication situations... it seems that teachers in the classroom do not follow these prescriptions in their everyday work...Teachers develop a hankering after perfection which hinders pupils...The fact that [pupils] are constantly being corrected by the teachers leads to an excessive use of French during the English lesson: the teachers give grammatical explanations in French and pupils respond...likewise” The Assessment of Pupils’ Skills in English in Eight European Countries 2002: A European Project, p 129

Chapter Eight: I discover the Trinity in Marne La Vallée: “Originally, the dissertation was a formalized form of theological or juridical disputation. ...Around 1880... it was introduced first into the university curriculum then into the agrégation and finally the CAPES... The rhetorical rigidification... and veritable fetichisation of the ‘dissertation’ goes back to the 1920-30s—no doubt linked to the resistance of a traditionalist elite against the democratization of studies.” Didier Dacunha-Castelle Peut-on encore sauver l’école?8

Chapter Nine :Kareema “In late years in America, it [bragging] has taken on an almost pathological character, and is to be explained, perhaps, only in terms of Freudian necromancy. Braggadacio, i.e. the 100% American—“we won the war,” “it is our duty to lead the world,” and so on—is probably no more than a protective mechanism erected to conceal an inescapable sense of inferiority.” H.L.Mencken, Chrestomathy

 Chapter Ten : City Councilor for the Opposition “In order to fight the insufficient representation of women in political life, the constitutional law of July 8, 1999 modified two articles of the French constitution... , obliging political parties to raise the percentage of woman candidates to 40% for the municipal elections of 2001...” Official website of the French Senate

Chapter Eleven : Pre Double Zero Tension “France, which justifies the pressure throughout its school system by its capacity to educate elites, produces in reality half as many outstanding students at age 15 as countries such as Finland or Canada...” « French students are more stressed than high performing.” Le Monde de L’Education, October 2005.

Chapter Twelve : Education Nationale “President Jacques Chirac abruptly left the room where 25 European leaders had just started a meeting with the head of European business leaders, Ernest-Antoine Seilière, because the latter had chosen to speak in English.” Le Monde, March 24, 2006

Chapter Thirteen : Trouble in a Fast Food Franchise “[French secret agent] Captain Prieur was chosen [for the Rainbow Warrior mission] because of her agrégation d’anglais. The fact that she barely spoke the language... had no importance...” Tahiti-Pacifique Magazine, n° 171 July 2005

Chapter Fourteen : “Les Forts” “...in the figure of Nathan Landau, Styron has presented a demonic, carnal Jew of homicidal tendencies who victimizes a Polish Catholic survivor of the Holocaust. Again, the reversal of stereotypes, while not illegitimate in itself, is disturbing in its implications, especially when it becomes an outright distortion of historical events.” D.G. Myers, "Jews Without Memory: Sophie's Choice and the Ideology of Liberal Anti-Judaism"

Chapter Fifteen : A Lesson in Economics “Demand for private lessons [in France] increases yearly. 78,000 students for Acadomia, the leader with 2.2 million hours of classes sold; 30,000 for Legendre, 10,000 for Anacours...” 20 Minutes, September 2, 2005

Chapter Sixteen : Dry Run “..what distinguishes a French person...is not the fact that he speaks French but... the way in which he uses language, the manner in which he reasons and discusses.” Theodore Zeldin Histoire des Passions Françaises

Chapter Seventeen : Le Mal Absolu “William Styron’s novel was a pioneering dissent on the Holocaust, a forceful challenge to prevailing opinion... The common opinion of most Jewish scholars and writers, including Yehuda Bauer, Arthur A. Cohen, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Emil Fackenheim, Sir Martin Gilbert, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Steven T. Katz, Lawrence L. Langer, Deborah E. Lipstadt, and Cynthia Ozick, is that the Holocaust was unique...Styron vigorously criticizes Jewish scholars and writers for this ‘narrow’ and 'specifically Jewish interpretation.' In its stead he advances a universalist, even metaphysical interpretation, understanding the Holocaust as the embodiment of absolute evil, which threatens humanity as a whole...” D.G. Myers, ibid Part II

Chapter One : In bed with the CNED “With 350,000 students registered in more than 3000 classes, the CNED ranks as one of France’s official Academies.” Luc Ferry, Minister of Education Revue du CNED

Chapter Two : A change in program “Poland is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, soul-split country which in many ways...resembles or conjures up images of the American South...there is a sinister sort of likeness between Poland and the American South which, although anything but superficial, causes the two cultures to blend so perfectly together as to seem almost one in their shared extravagance—and that has to do with the matter of race, which in both worlds has produced centuries-long, all-encompassing nightmare spells of schizophrenia.” William Styron Sophie’s Choice

 Chapter Three : I attempt to apply scientific method “In 2002 the performance of the French pupils (in the Assessment of skills in English page 125) is significantly lower than that in the other six countries as the table indicates: Oral Comprehension Linguistic Competence Reading Comprehension Written Production Denmark 64.77 53.95 78.32 46.17 Finland 59.65 67.59 80.29 47.70 FRANCE 30.60 48.01 56.84 14.55 Holland 61.63 65.00 77.47 46.04 Norway 73.26 66.36 82.03 56.30 Spain 38.33 58.75 63.57 23.41 Sweden 72.18 64.23 85.88 55.39

 Chapter Four : D-Day “They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with a continuous tramp and shuffle of bare feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look back, and when clear of confining rails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed down the yawning hatchways, filled the inner recesses of the ship—like water filling a cistern, like water flowing into crevices and crannies, like water rising silently even with the rim... ‘Look at dese cattle,’ said the German skipper to his new first mate.” Joseph Conrad Lord Jim

Chapter Five : Seeds of the October Revolution “Devoir de réserve13 : Government functionaries are bound by an obligation to professional secrecy and discretion.” B-2-10 Devoir de réserve (L 83-634 July 13, 1983 article 26; Letter FP n° 1430 October 5, 1981; QE 4024 June 6, 1952)

Chapter Six : I receive a strange copy of my exam “The jury is sovereign. If it provides no explanations, it can’t be contested.” internal document from the CNRS, 2005

Part III

Chapter One : I learn to doubt Rule Number One: “Never accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such” Descartes Discourse on Method

Chapter Two : Where is Michael Moore when you need him? The French mind always places the academy, the form, the convention, the à priori, the abstract and the artificial above the real and prefers clarity to truth, words over things, and rhetoric to science. F. Amiel, Journal Intime, September 30, 1871, quoted by Theodore Zeldin

Chapter Three : Rebecca learns to teach English “In [learning English] there exists a “French exception”... which has nothing to do with the quality of teaching or supposed shortcomings in pedagogical method.... a nearly unique case, linked to the patterns of accentuation in French... Antony Stenton of Toulouse University quoted in Le Monde de L’Education, October 2005

Chapter Four : The Curious Incident of the British Oxford classicist “Discrimination due to nationality between workers of member States concerning employment, pay and other work conditions is illegal.” Article III-133 of the European Constitution rejected by France

Anecdotal statistics: Teacher Training Unit (IUFM of Antony), 2005: Number of professeurs stagiaires: 14 Of the 14, number of native English speakers: 3 Of the 14, number who are repeating the trial year after “failing”: 2 Of the 2 “repeats,” number of French: 0 Of the 2 “repeats,” number of English native speakers: 2

Chapter Five : Duck are like Fish “Some inspectors are frankly hostile to the idea of professional exams and to certain kinds of internal competitions. As a result, they exploit any pretext to disqualify teachers.” SNEC teachers’ union, quoted in Le Monde de L’Education, November 2005

Chapter Six : Rebecca in paradise “The best teacher, until one comes to adult pupils, is not the one who knows most, but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and the wonderful which slips into the infantile comprehension.” H.L. Mencken Chrestomathy

Chapter Seven : In Praise of Logistics What determines how a war is fought? Strategy and tactics would be the logical answer, of course. But what determines strategy and tactics? The answer is logistics. A war cannot be fought without ammunition, replacement weapons, and subsistence for the armed forces. History reveals the truth about the dominant nature of logistics. Dr. Burton Wright III, command historian at the Army Chemical School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

 Chapter Eight : Moles from the Fifth Column “Displacement: the redirection of an emotion or impulse from its original object (as an idea or a person) to something that is more acceptable” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

Chapter Nine : Is Paris Burning? “November 9, 2005, French state of emergency: Government invokes a curfew law dating from Algeria war” headline International Herald Tribune “I want to make France a bilingual country,” Nicolas Sarkozy President of France

Arizona pushes schools to fire English teachers with accents - WSJ.com

 

The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.

n the 1990s, Arizona hired hundreds of teachers whose first language was Spanish as part of a broad bilingual-education program. Many were recruited from Latin America.

Then in 2000, voters passed a ballot measure stipulating that instruction be offered only in English. Bilingual teachers who had been instructing in Spanish switched to English.

About 150,000 of Arizona's 1.2 million public-school students are classified as English Language Learners. Of the state's 247 school districts, about 20 have high concentrations of such students, the largest number of which are in the younger grades.

Nearly half the teachers at Creighton, a K-8 school in a Hispanic neighborhood of Phoenix, are native Spanish speakers. State auditors have reported to the district that some teachers pronounce words such as violet as "biolet," think as "tink" and swallow the ending sounds of words, as they sometimes do in Spanish.

For full article in the Wall Street Journal, click here.

via online.wsj.com