LET A MILLION FLOWERS BLOOM:

2 languages better than 1, kids say: City school board to vote tonight on creating a charter at Fruit Ridge. (Erika Chavez, February 19, 2004, Sacramento Bee)

Founded in 1994, the Fruit Ridge immersion program starts in kindergarten with 90 percent Spanish instruction and 10 percent English. Each year, Spanish instruction decreases by 10 percent.

While students in two-way immersion programs initially score lower on standardized tests, they do as well or better than their peers in third grade and beyond, said Julie Sugarman, a researcher at the Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit think tank that pioneered curricula for English as a Second Language and promotes foreign language instruction.

The same trends hold true at Fruit Ridge. Soto-Chapa said that almost four out of 10 English-speaking second-through fifth-graders in the Spanish immersion program score at advanced or proficient levels on the English Language Arts portion of the California Standards Test. By comparison, only one out of 10 English speakers in grades two through five not enrolled in the Spanish immersion program score at advanced or proficient levels.

Teach them English and who cares how you get there.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 23, 2004 7:33 AM