Chicago to teachers: Give migrant students a 70% and pass them along

Chicago Public School teachers in black neighborhoods say they've been ordered to give migrant students a 70 percent and pass them to the next grade, regardless of their academic performance, reports Sylvia Snowden for WGN News.

Nearly 50,000 newcomers have arrived in Chicago in the last two years, primarily from Venezuela and Central America. With state rental aid, many were resettled in low-income, black areas with affordable housing. They were enrolled in nearly all-black schools that had empty seats, but few teachers who speak Spanish or have training in teaching English as a Second Language.

Promotion guidelines are “modified to serve the specialized needs of English Language Learners," the district conceded.

Migrant students get very little instruction in dozens of understaffed schools, report Reema Amin and Mina Bloom in a report by Chalkbeat Chicago and Block Club Chicago.

"At Laura S. Ward Elementary School on the West Side, which has gained dozens of English learners, a kindergarten teacher and two custodians are translating for the whole building."

“They were dropped at our doorstep, and we’re supposed to keep it moving, accept these children, educate them and keep it moving,” said Dewanda Watt, a first-grade teacher at Ward. “There should’ve been a plan. There was no plan from Chicago Public Schools.”

Some schools are trying to launch bilingual programs, as required by state law, but that's difficult without the ability to hire qualified bilingual teachers. I can tell you from California's experience that bad bilingual programs -- typically using aides rather than teachers and dumbed-down curriculum -- are very bad indeed.

If Chicago is this unprepared for an influx of immigrant students, how do schools cope in smaller, less cosmopolitan places with proportionately more newcomers? Like, say, Springfield, Ohio.