Understanding the Epistemological Divide in ESL Education

Neoliberal Education Discourse

Neoliberalism is an epistemological shift that advances the idea that all social sphere (i.e., education, health care, social services) is economic reality and should be seen through economic analytical schemata (Lemke, 2001). According to Lemke, the model of “rational-economic action” justifies governmental intervention to universalize competition and create “market-shaped systems of action for individuals, groups and institutions” (p. 197). Therefore, society is best organized and managed through policies that promote the authority of free markets, competition, and the individual’s right to choose in his or her best interest (Peters, 2005; Ross & Gibson, 2007; Sleeter, 2012; Torres, 2009). According to Ross and Gibson (2007), NCLB is an example of the neoliberal agenda in that it promotes strict curriculum standards and accountability for teaching and testing, and opens the educational markets to compete in curriculum, testing, and instructional development as well as through vouchers and charter schools.Indeed, the administrators and teachers we worked with were well versed in the language of NCLB standards, instruments, language, and criteria used to categorize and assess achievement. This discourse strongly influenced the ways they perceived and talked about the ELLs in their care. Peters (2005) asserts that many of the polices created under NCLB also ensure that those responsible for implementing them become self-invested in believing, performing, and evaluating themselves according to these ideas. In this way, NCLB mandates become self-monitoring activities, or what Foucault (1978a) calls governmentality, that promotes the belief that administrators making these decisions are rational educators. For example, mandates act as the bar one should measure up to in order to be perceived as self-actualizing, rational individuals and as institutions acting on their own free will.

Though the government creates the rules for education like NCLB, it is not responsible for the consequences of such regulations (Lemke, 2001). Instead, it steers local education from a distance through a system of rewards and punishments (Lipman, 2007). Given consequent pressures to perform to standards and produce results, schools adhere to particular ways of functioning, like following efficiency and performance standards and competing for limited resources that exclude other ways of teaching, learning, and assessing. This neoliberal way of functioning, according to Ross and Gibson (2007, p. 2), creates an “ideological monoculture” among those invested in the systems it creates and any attempt to challenge these systems are met with the common response that “there is no alternative (aka TINA).” TINA prevents many school personnel from looking beyond scores and “seeing” their students.

NCLB also has racialized effects through its policies. Though NCLB mandates holding schools, teachers, and students accountable for teaching and learning on the surface seem like they are an attempt to address educational inequality by “leaving no child behind,” they actually exacerbate inequality (Lipman, 2007; Teachers for Social Justice [TSJ], 2004). For example, student achievement is primarily measured by high-stake tests. However, this type of measurement ignores the racialized, inequitable, disinvested communities from which many minorities, including ELLs, reside. According to Leistyna (2007), the “needs of culturally diverse, low income, racially subordinated and linguistic minorities are simply disregarded” (p. 99). Responsibility for failure and underachievement is thus placed on minority and ELL students alone and not examined as tied to an inequitable system (Lipman, 2007). In neoliberal discourse, individuals act/perform/choose in their best interest to be successful; those who fail are considered not to have acted in their own best interest. This logic ignores the structural racism and class inequality woven into the fabric of the nation (McLaren, 2005).

ESL as an Essentializing Label

The school district we worked with mirrored national statistics in that 75% of its ELLs were Spanish speakers, and the ELL populations in several schools were nearly entirely Spanish speaking. Latinas/os accounted for 20% of district enrollment. The next largest ethnic group, “Asians,” made up just 3% of enrollment. No other native language group was large enough to be named on school demographic reports. However, despite this large population of Latinas/os, it seemed to us that Latina/o students and their families were knowingly disregarded by the district. Rather than being referred to as a complex amalgamation of different ethnic groups with differing native dialects and varied areas of need and strength in education, or as Latina/o, Hispanic, or various nationalities (Mexican, Salvadorian, etc.), Latinas/os receiving language services in the district were essentialized as “ESL.” As a result of this and, perhaps, the need to constantly assess achievement, their educational needs were addressed in a one-dimensional manner, with nearly all efforts for improving their schooling going toward ESL classes. Latinas/os not being assisted by ESL services were not included in the discussion initiated by the district.

The essentializing ESL label vivisected students from their racial, ethnic, and language communities, as well as from any discussion of structural inequality of society or school. Consistent with neoliberal notions of responsibility (Peters, 2005), students were constructed by the district as individuals performing in their own best interests. Success or failure was considered to be their choice. Colorblindness, the pervasive American discourse of avoiding overt discussion of race (Marx, 2006; Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Omi & Winant, 1994; Ryan, 2003), also contributed to and was amplified by this vivisection. In this sense, the “ESL” label was used as a dangerous discourse that enabled the continued erasure of the real bodies and lives, as well as the economic and political conditions, of the Latinas/os served by the school (Saavedra, 2011).

The monthly ESL meetings we attended clearly illustrate this erasure. These meetings were developed by the district to evaluate its current ESL programming and improve it through the involvement of ESL scholars, such as ourselves, parents of ELLs, students with an interest in the topic, community leaders with close ties to the local Latino communities, as well as district principals and ESL teachers. The first meeting was a catharsis for many Latina/o parents and students, who responded to the invitation to share with stories of nonacademic ESL classes that removed students from core curriculum, the lack of skill of some teachers, and examples of discrimination and routine marginalization. They were concerned about Latina/o and ELL academic achievement, English language development, happiness, feelings of fitting in, as well as experiences with discrimination. These concerns and experiences are well documented in immigrant, Latina/o, and second language acquisition research in the field of education (e.g., Marx, 2008; Garcia, 2001; Garcia & Baker, 2007; Lightbown & Spada, 2006; Moll & Ruiz, 2009; Nieto, 2005; Valencia, 1997; Valenzuela, 1999). Those speaking seemed to feel they were in a safe environment to share these concerns. Their stories were thoughtful, emotional, and illustrative of the points they were making.

While the committee leader, a White administrator from the central office, invited a diverse group of people to participate in these open discussions, she clearly was not prepared to handle the issues they raised. She was troubled that parent and student perspectives were, she said, far afield from the committee’s focus on language education. Several times, she commented that the committee had moved into discussion of culture, when its purpose was to focus on language, entities she described as unrelated. This argument counters fundamental knowledge in the fields of culture and language acquisition that argue each are important aspects of the other (e.g., Agar, 1996; Kubota & Lin, 2009; Ovando et al., 2006). She eventually clarified that the task of the committee was to improve the district’s ESL program to raise achievement scores. This task reveals her investment in the district’s neoliberal, NCLB policy-focused epistemology, the goal of raising achievement scores, and the importance of promoting competition in the district. One outspoken Latina parent stopped attending after the first meeting. She told us that she felt silenced by the committee leader and did not want to participate in what she characterized as a waste of time. The remaining committee gathered into subcommittees and went about collecting information. Over a several month period, subcommittees wrote extensive research reports on second language acquisition and ESL research, surveyed parents of ESL students, created a documentary film on the experiences of former ESL students, and visited district ESL classes.

However, most efforts to share this information with the committee were politely but firmly rejected by the committee leader. She consistently critiqued the information presented as too biased or not narrowly enough focused on language and programming. As time went by most Latinas/os stopped attending. All Whites voicing concerns or critiques were asked not to return to the meetings. After a few months, only White native English-speaking administrators and teachers remained part of the revision effort, an effort that no longer seemed focused on revision.

Invisibilization

The purposeful disregard for Latina/o teachers, students, families, and voices, what we are calling “invisibilization,” was especially noticeable when contrasted with the ways other, smaller, ethnic and language groups receiving English language services were characterized by the district during the ESL meetings. For example, in recent years, a small group of Kayin (commonly known as Karen in English) refugees from Burma (also known as Myanmar) moved into district boundaries. These immigrants were of a minority ethnic and linguistic group in their home country and had a history of maltreatment and genocide by the Burmese government. Many teachers and administrators told affectionate stories of getting to know these immigrants and helping them with basic necessities as they sought to make their way in a new culture and language. Several schools partnered with the local community English language school to meet the needs of whole families. The English language school’s website was filled with stories about this group of immigrants. Rather than being referred to as “ESL,” these students and their families were respectfully (if essentially) referred to by the ethnic identifier “Karen People” and talked about as complex, nuanced people with many needs the district planned to meet. Although they were often highlighted in meetings by White teachers and administrators, no Kayin people participated in the district’s ESL committee.

While they were not typically referred to as “ESL,” Kayin refugee students were characterized as ESL by the district when necessary to dismiss the usefulness of language programs or school practices that might benefit Latina/o students and/or Spanish speakers. For example, Kayin students were advanced as the reason why bilingual education, dual language immersion, and Spanish for native speakers classes could not be implemented in the district. One representative of a school with 57 students classified as ELL, for example, passionately argued that Spanish language programming would not work in her school because it was very diverse and did not only serve Latinas/os. District data, however, showed that just five students in the school classified as ELL did not speak Spanish.

Just as student ethnic, racial, and language groups were strategically “fragmented” (McLaren, 2005) by the district to dismiss approaches to education known to be beneficial to Latina/o students, they were also strategically lumped together at times with the construction of “all” to serve the same purpose. As Pollock (2004) explains,

To some, talk of education for “all” specifically commands the active pursuit of racial equality; to others, the word demands that educational policy actively ignore race. Either way . . . race is deeply buried in the word—and as a policy word that is colormute and race-loaded simultaneously, “all” can be both a useful and a dangerous word for equality efforts. (p. 74)

Pollock watched “all talk” (p. 82) continually marginalize the larger and more established racialized groups in the multiracial school she studied; Kubota (2004) and Marx (2009)have noticed similar “all” arguments used to disguise the needs for effective language assistance programs and culturally relevant curricula for Latina/o students accounting for large proportions of school populations. As Pollock notes, “the de-raced words we use when discussing plans for achieving racial equality can actually keep us from discussing ways to make opportunities racially equal” [emphasis in original] (2004, p. 75).

We were pleased Kayin refugees were receiving so much positive attention from the district. However, we were distressed that Latinas/os were being so obviously marginalized and invisibilized through these colormute efforts (Pollock, 2004). The district resisted addressing the needs of 75% of its ELLs and 20% of its overall population. Unlike the Kayin refugees, Latina/o families and their personal histories were not known by educators in the district and Latinas/os were not viewed as complex or nuanced people.

Linguistic Racism

Although minimal ESL services have been offered in school districts locally and nationwide, many educators and administrators continue to express great resistance to language programs that incorporate Spanish in meaningful ways and many educators express outrage at any use of Spanish in the classroom (see Marx, 2008). We recognize this abhorrence and rejection of Spanish as linguistic racism, what Skutnabb-Kangas (1995) calls “linguicism.” Discussions with school teachers and leaders reveal that Latina/o underachievement in the local schools continues to be understood as largely the result of Latina/o families’ lack of interest in schooling and acquiring English, an established neoliberal discourse of individual responsibility (Peters, 2005) and a clear example of deficit thinking (Valencia, 1997). Clearly, to the district, ELL students and families were not doing their best. Unfortunately, these racist, deficit thoughts are not unique to our area but describe dominant group impressions of Latinas/os across the United States (Marx, 2006, 2008; Valencia, 1997). They remind us that the common public abhorrence of Spanish in the classroom signifies beliefs that languages other than English are “un-American,” unpatriotic, and disruptive to the American educational system’s agenda of assimilation and deculturalization (e.g., Crawford, 2000; Nieto, 2005; Spring, 2010; Tyack & Cuban, 1995).

The demonization of Spanish as a native language in schools can also be viewed as racial and linguistic backlash by the White, native English-speaking public, which consciously and unconsciously seeks to maintain its own value and subsequent power, as well as to counter what some term the “browning” of America (Demas & Saavedra, 2004; Marx, 2006; Omi & Winant, 1994). It seems that the novelty and diversity of various Burmese languages, as well as their limited number of speakers, prevented them from being equally maligned by the dominant White, native English-speaking community. No variety of Burmese is presently a threat to established district policies or programming; as a result, there is no need to condemn it or ban it from schools, at least in this moment.

Narrow Focus on Vocabulary

In purposefully avoiding cultural specificity so that Spanish speakers are not unfairly advantaged over others in their education, the district ESL curricula narrowly focuses on English vocabulary. The elementary ELL students we observed spend their class time memorizing various decontextualized words such as “table legs,” “door,” “apple,” and odd, rarely used words such as pencil “shaft.” The scripted materials require teachers to read instructions and students to respond chorally with specific words or short phrases.

In class, ELLs are required to sit quietly, hands in laps, eyes on teachers, as they repeat words when prompted. Students resting their heads in their hands or staring out the window are kindly, but firmly, redirected to move their eyes to the teacher and put their hands in their laps. Those keeping careful eye contact and holding still are rewarded with candies and checkmarks for each positive behavior. We watched White teachers carefully monitor and control little Brown bodies in a form of education that equates docile bodies with language learning (Cruz, 2001; Foucault, 1977). Teachers are allowed to use Spanish, but do so quietly, under their breath, only translating vocabulary words. We did not see any Burmese children or other non-Spanish speakers in the classes we observed on invitation of the district.

A Contrasting Example: Celebrating Chinese Language Learning

Contrasting the highly controlled, repetitive ESL classes focused solely on vocabulary and controlled by scripted instruction that are offered to predominantly Latina/o children in the district are the Chinese classes offered to primarily White, English-speaking children in area high schools in- and outside the district, a subject that was the focus of a local newspaper story printed as we were writing this article. In describing her classes, one of the teachers enthusiastically explained that “the nature of language class lends itself to have lots of fun . . . You can do anything because you’re learning how to talk.” In their classes, students practice Chinese calligraphy, celebrate Chinese New Year, take excursions to local Chinese restaurants, watch Chinese television, and attend Chinese culture clubs. While we did not visit the Chinese classes for this article and cannot affirm their pedagogical success, we cannot help but be amazed by the entirely different way they have been constructed, characterized, and supported by local educators as compared to ESL classes. While White students of Chinese are listening to songs, watching movies, taking field trips, and eating lots of food, Brown students of English are sitting quietly in their chairs, hands in their laps, eyes on their teachers, repeating word after word, and receiving a piece of candy for keeping their eyes on the teacher. The racial and linguistic inequality evident in these examples are striking.

Scripted Instruction Versus Authentic Language Experiences

One recommendation we made was to expand teachers’ focus on vocabulary memorization to include meaningful, “authentic” language experiences (Moraes, 1996). Rather than have students memorize lists of words, for example, we suggested that teachers could focus on a theme, such as “apples,” and ask students to taste and describe the flavors of various apples in their native languages with one another and then in English with the help of the teacher, generating vocabulary within the lesson. The administrator with whom we shared this recommendation was visibly stunned; she countered that children would be cognitively confused by such an activity. She was concerned that children would describe the taste inaccurately in their native language and not be able to understand any of their classmates. Without teachers able to monitor their words, children’s comprehension could not be guaranteed. In a classroom made up entirely of Spanish speaking children, taught by a teacher who spoke Spanish, she argued that the linguistic and cultural diversity of the children would prevent them from being able to communicate with one another, to understand contextualized curricula, or to be properly monitored by their teacher. Teachers, she argued, had to focus on a scripted text so that “all” children could respond to it equally and in unison. Her understanding of language learning as “bits of information and skills to be taught and tested” to “other people’s children” allowed no room for our suggestion and prevented her from seeing its value (Delpit, 2006; Ross & Gibson, 2007, p. 4).

Professionalism Versus De-Skilling of Teachers

Consistent with neoliberal governmentality, the school administrators we talked with frequently cited NCLB requirements for diversity, funding, teacher professional development, and student test scores as they talked about the ESL program. Teachers and administrators also consistently brought up the importance of test scores and the usefulness of scripted curriculum for keeping teachers and students aligned within a prepackaged program. We realized these as the terms they used to not only describe their professionalism but also to self-monitor their own efficiency and performance-based practices. After our dismissal, we came to realize these were the same parameters of professionalism they likely expected from us.

However, our own critical and social justice perspectives led us to look at this model of professionalism as rigid and narrowly defined by current accountability policy and for-profit markets, rather than educational scholarship. Instead of the program in place, we recommended a creative, more research-based approach to ESL education that would require teachers to critique the curriculum, adjust it, supplement it, and perhaps abandon it altogether. We assumed ESL teachers in the district, all of whom are “highly qualified” teachers with ESL endorsements, would be able to and eager to rely on their knowledge of the field to improve curriculum and make it more authentic and meaningful to their students. We also assumed teachers would want to get to know their students and tailor the curriculum to them, rather than force all the ELL children, with varying skills and language abilities, to fit the adopted textbook. When we suggested the ESL teachers “create the curriculum around the children,” the same administrator balked, shocked again. She countered that creating curricula was much too onerous for teachers. Given how busy they were implementing the curriculum in place, they would have no time to make changes. The teacher we met with looked equally overwhelmed at the thought of working outside a scripted program.

Over time, we came to understand the district’s perspective on ESL education as evidence for the de-skilling of teachers (Apple, 1988; Cannella, 1997) through neoliberal educational policies. This perspective notes that the low status of the teaching profession (Apple, 1988) and the general mistrust of teachers (Cannella, 1997) has led to the replacement of the intellectual activities of teachers with “classroom management and the simplification of content” (Cannella, 1997, p. 145). This is especially common for teachers working with children who have historically been marginalized by schooling, such as low-income children, children of color, and English language learners (e.g., Guerrero & Sloan, 2001; Oakes, 2005), just like the children served in this ESL program. Given its embrace of this kind of teaching for ELL students, the district viewed our suggestions as contradictory to the education it valued.

Change Versus change

Another point of conflict was our understanding of “change.” As critical educators, we tend to think of change as transformative and perhaps ideal. With an earnest invitation from the district and volumes of English language education research at our fingertips, we entered the relationship believing anything was possible. Our decision to volunteer our expertise and work as closely with the district as necessary illustrates our commitment to improving ESL education. We assumed we would be helping to write the proposal for the new program based on our understanding of ESL research. However, in the school district, change was tightly limited by neoliberal policy, program, funding, and a history of reluctance in meeting the needs of ELL and Latina/o students. In our discussions with district personnel, we eventually understood that the task at hand was making the students fit within the current system, including its adopted curriculum program, not changing the ESL program. As Ross and Gibson (2007, p. 2) predicted, we commonly received the response to our suggestions that “There is no other way”.

It seemed that administrators thought of students as separate and distinct from the curriculum, even when the curriculum was clearly failing. Some key bits of evidence for this are the passing rates on the criterion referenced tests the district uses to measure “adequate yearly progress” per NCLB requirements. On these measures, English language learners reach proficiency at 60 and 65 percentage points lower than their White, native English-speaking classmates in Language Arts and Math; Latinas/os as an overall group reach proficiency at 30 percentage points lower. Given the district’s focus on assessment and accountability, with all curriculum supposedly aligned with testing, these measures should be evidence for the district that the curriculum is not working. However, when we recommended alternative types of curriculum for ELLs, we were dismissed for trying to modify a “proven” curriculum that supported the district’s visions of learning and teaching a second language. As time passed and our recommendations became more focused and repeated, teachers and administrators responded by citing and repeating NCLB mandates referring to the minimum requirements for ELLs as well as the stated budget for the reforms—both examples of neoliberal governmentality that ensured they stay true to NCLB through the language they used (Foucault, 1978a).