"What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?" he said. "You learn all these Chinese words, OK. That's not going to help you master ... English. So you really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child's time trying to learn a word that they'll never ever use again"
He added that some words — such as chow mein — might be useful.
Need I say more?
-Angela
by Michelle De La Rosa
Express-News / 03/21/2008
Many Texas educators are incensed by the latest version of the state's proposed English language arts and reading curriculum, which includes hardly any books portraying Hispanic culture in a state where nearly half the schoolchildren are Hispanic.
A draft of the curriculum, released Wednesday, includes more than 150 literary works that Texas public school teachers should consider using for their courses. Only four of them reflect the Hispanic culture, a woefully low figure they fear will limit the exposure of the state's 4.7 million schoolchildren to cultural diversity.
Educators, consultants and advocacy groups are referring to the recommendations as a "book list," which the state has shied away from in the past. They predict that textbook publishers, hoping to have their book adopted by the state, will include in their text revisions only the literary works that appear on the list.
That worries educators such as Cindy Tyroff, a secondary language arts instructional specialist in the Northside Independent School District, where about 60 percent of students are Hispanic.
"A lot of these are classic pieces of literature, and there's certainly nothing wrong with classic pieces of literature," she said. "But I also think that one of the ways that we help, in particular, struggling readers access text is by giving them materials where they see themselves."
The State Board of Education is scheduled to hold a public hearing about the proposed curriculum changes Wednesday and is expected to take a preliminary vote the next day. A final vote is scheduled for May 23.
The new standards, which affect kindergarten through 12th grades, will influence textbooks for the 2009-2010 school year.
Don McLeroy, board chairman, said Friday he couldn't comment about the list because he hadn't reviewed which books made it into the document.
However, McLeroy said he directed a group of experts to add examples of "good literature" to the list. He said students should spend their time in English class learning English and reading literature that will help prepare them for college.
"What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?" he said. "You learn all these Chinese words, OK. That's not going to help you master ... English. So you really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child's time trying to learn a word that they'll never ever use again"
He added that some words — such as chow mein — might be useful.
Educators say they don't have a problem with the classics, such as "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "The Great Gatsby." However, they say, the recommendations on the table are heavy on classics and short on contemporary and cultural works to which students can relate.
The books by Hispanic authors included on the list are: "Love in the Time of Cholera," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; "Becoming Naomi Leon" by Pam Muñoz Ryan; "The Jumping Tree" by Rene Saldaña; and "El Pajaro Cu," or "The Coo Bird," a collection of fables.
Tyroff said missing from the list is local author Sandra Cisneros' book "House on Mango Street." However, Cisneros said Friday she doesn't think there should be a recommended list at all. Instead, educators should choose books to which students can relate.
"I feel it's just important that we select books that might speak to young people at whatever age that reader is," Cisneros said. "A lot of times, people who aren't used to books aren't going to read ... books that they find intimidating."
The proposed curriculum states that teachers should "consider reading" specific books, but critics say educators and textbook publishers will interpret whatever is in the curriculum as a requirement.
"The minute they say an example would be this book, or consider this book, that's it," said Mary Helen Berlanga, a state board member from Corpus Christi. "They take it as, 'Oh, we should be reading this.'"
The curriculum currently used in Texas classrooms includes no book recommendations. Instead, school districts or individual campuses develop their own reading lists.
And an initial draft of the curriculum rewrite, developed by a teacher work group over the past two years, also didn't include specific titles.
However, last month, a group of state board members tried to introduce a separate curriculum proposal, one that had been rejected by the state board a decade ago. The effort failed but the board voted to appoint a subcommittee of members — McLeroy, Gail Lowe, Geraldine Miller and Lawrence Allen — to review the document the teacher group developed.
The book recommendations are a result of that review, for which the board members recruited experts.
Ken Mercer, one of two state board members who represent San Antonio, said the books included in the curriculum are merely suggestions — not requirements. San Antonio's other state board representative, Rick Agosto, told a reporter he would return a telephone call on Friday but did not.
David Bradley, state board vice chairman, said teachers and other educators are unhappy because they didn't get to develop the recommended list.
"You've got to establish some guidelines," he said. "Ultimately, the debate comes down to who gets to decide on the list, and it falls to the 15 folks who were elected."
mdelarosa@express-news.net
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