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TITLE Adelante...con GANASI (Forward with Progress!) ATitle VII Transitional Bilingual Program in BurbankMiddle school. 1993-94. Report on Education Programs.

Evaluation Report.INSTITUTION Houston Independent School District, Tex.

PUB DATE Sep 94

NOTE 37p.

PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142)

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DESCRIPTORS Academic Achievement; *Bilingual Education; *EarlyIntervention; *English (Second Language);Intermediate Grades; Junior High Schools; *LimitedEnglish Speaking; Literacy Education; MathematicsAchievement; Middle Schools; Oral Language; ProgramEvaluation; *Reading Skills; Second LanguageLearning; Spanish Speaking; Surveys; TeachingMethods; Test Results

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this report was to describe the first

year of the implementation of a bilingual program consisting of three

levels of instruction: preliterate, beginning, and intermediate.

Students were placed in one of the three levels following state and

district guidelines. The instruction implemented was designed to

serve students with little or no English facility. In addition, it

addressed the needs of those limited-English-proficient students with

little or no formal schooling, a condition that resulted in a lowlevel of academic achievement. The program that was used employedboth English and Spanish as the medium of instruction. The present

evaluation involved analysis of students' standardized tests data, astaff survey, a parent survey, a student survey, and classobservations. The findings indicate that students in the program madesignificant progress in Math and Spanish Reading. At the end of thefirst ye-,r, English oral proficiency of students was at theNon-Speakers 19vel. All participants in the program includingstudents, teachers and parents, expressed satisfaction with all of

the program components. Recommendations for improvements arediscussed. (Contains two references.) (Author /CK)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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...

Report on Educational ProgramsAn Evaluation Report from the Department of Research and Evaluation

lAdelante...con GANAS!:

A Title VII Transitional Bilingual Program

in Burbank Middle School1993-94

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Houston Independent School District

4

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

HOUSTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT

BOARD OF EDUCATION

Ron Fr; nklin, Fresident

Arthur M. Gaines, Jr., First Vice-President

Olga Gallegos, Second Vice-Presinent

Carol Mims Galloway, Secretary

Paula Arnold, Assistant Secretary

Esther Campos

Robert Charles Jefferson

Don McAdams

Cathy Mincberg

Rod PaigeSuperintendent of Schools

Faye B. BryantExecutive Deputy Superintendent (Acting), School Administration

Rose HicksDeputy Superintendent, Support Services

Mon:ca SandovalAssociate Superintendent, School Planning and Accountability

Kathryn SanchezAssistant Superintendent, Department of Research and Evaluation

Shai Leinsohn, Alfredo A. Gavito, and Luellen BledsoeDepartment of Research and Evaluation

Linda VelasquezAdelante con Ganas-Program Coordinator, Burbank Middle School

If

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ADELANTECON GANAS!:A TITLE VII TRANSITIONALRANSITIONAL BILINGUAL PROGRAM

IN BURBANK MIDDLE SCHOOL

1993-94

Program DescriptionIn August 1993. the Houston Independent School

District received Trom the Office of Bilingual andMinority Education at the U.S. Department of Educa-tion a three-years grant to implement a Title VIIprogram. This transitional bilingual program wasimplemented at Burbank Middle School and wasnamed jAdelante...con Gnnas!. The first-year granttotaled $175,000 with !-IISD's in-kind contributiontotaling $189,69. The goal of this project was toimplement a program for recent immigrant studentsto successfully progress through a linguistically anddevelopmentally appropriate sequence of languageand content skills in order to achieve the following:

age and grade appropriate literacy,English language proficiency,grade level mastery in the content areas.

The instructional program was divided into threelevels: the preliterate level, the beginning level andintermediate level. In the preliterate level, the projectserved students with limited literacy skills in the firstlanguage (Spanish). The program provided Englishas a Second Language (ESL) instruction as well asliteracy and concept development and content in thefirst language. The ESL instruction was primarily oral,focusing on communication and vocabulary. Contentinstruction in the first language focused on basiccontent information and skills.

The beginning level developed oral English com-munication and vocabulary, while refining the vocabu-lary and grammar of the first language. Instruction inthe academic areas continued concept developmentthrough the first language. The intermediate level

HISD RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

addresses both oral and written skills in English. Atthe same time, first language instruction in the contentareas gradually incorporated the English vocabularyof those content areas.

At the intermediate level, the program's bilingualcontent courses incorporated more English in order tocommensurate instruction with growing English lan-guage proficiency. As a further transition toward thetarget language, ESL reading was substituted forSpanish reading.

In addition to the previously discussed instruc-tional objectives, the Adelante program included stafftraining, and parental involvement objectives. Parentinvolvement included 6 school sponsored activitiesdesigned to enhance parents' knowledge about theirchildren and the special challenge of adolescence.

The goal of this evaluation report was to describe

the first-year implementation of the jAdelante...con

Ganas!project in Burbank Middle School during 1993-

94 school year. The following research questionswere addressed:1. What were the demographic characteristics of the

Limited Eng!isn Proficient (LEP) students thatwere served by the pro,,; am?

2. In what training activities did the program staffparticipate? How did the training help the pro-gram staff achieve their instructional goals? And,how can the training be improved?

3. What was the students' oral Spanish proficiencyat the beginning of the first year of instruction asmeasured by the Language Assessment Scales(LAS) test?

4

IADELANTE-CON GANAM: 1993-94

4 What was the students' oral English proficiency atthe end of the first year of instruction as measuredby the LAS test?

5 What were the changes in the students' achieve-ments in the content areas as measured by theSpanish Assessment of Basic Education (SABE)test during the first year of instruction in theAdelante program?

6. What was the mean attendance of the Adelante, students and what was the difference in atten-

dance rates between the Ade lante group and thecomparison group for 1993-94 school year?

7. What were the promotion rates of the Ade lantestudents and what was the difference of promo-tion rates between the Ade lante group and thecomparison group for 1993-94 school year?

8. How were parents involved in the program andwhat were their perceptions of this involvement?

9. What were the students' perceptions of and reac-tions towards the program?

10. What were the perceived strengths of theiAdelante...con Ganas! program?

11. What were the recommendations of programstaff, students and parents. for improving thequality of the program implementation?

FindingsThe Adelante program served more than 120students during the 1993-94 school year. Sincethe target population of the program includedrecent immigrants, about 40 of those studentsentered the program after it had been alreadystarted. Therefore, in order to evaluate the fullinstructional effects of the 1993-94 program, theparticipants in this program evaluation were onlythe 82 students who were enrolled in theiAdelante...con Ganas! program for at least 135instructional days.About seventy-five percent of the students in theprogram reported that their country of origin wasin Latin America. Of those coming from LatinAmerica, 78% or 49 were of Mexican origin fol-lowed by 20% or 15 students of Salvadorandescent. Only 8.5% of the Adelante programwere originated in the United States. Althoughabout 16% of the students did not report theircountry of origin, the program staff confirmed thatmost of them originated in Latin America. Onehundred percent of the students who comiAltedthe Home Language survey indicated that theirhome language was Spanish.

2

Forty-one percent of students in the programwere classified as either Pre-Literate or Begin-ning ESL level, while 59% of the Adelante stu-dents were in the Intermediate ESL level. Basedon this distribution and the additional studentswho entered the program after it had been started,five classes were formed: One 6th grade classthat included all levels, two 7th grade classes(one for each instructional level) and two 8thgrade classes (one for each instructional level).The staff training activities included 26 hours ofcomprehensive training, provided by the districtand other local agencies known for their expertisein working with the target population. Trainingtopics included but were not be limited to: nativelanguage instruction, teaching the preliterate stu-dent, ESL in the coitent area, interdisciplinaryplanning, cooperative learning, parental involve-ment, and multicultural awareness. In addition,members of the program staff participated indi-vidually in training sessions that correspond totheir area of interest. For example, the programcoordinator participated in a two-days workshoptitled "Exploring options for LEP students throughsuccessful Title VII Projects", which was offeredby Southwest Educational Development Labora-tory/ Multilingual Resource Center on November9-10, 1993. A math and science teacher partici-pated in several content-related inservices("Mathematica Para La Familia", "Math Enrich-ment and Extension for the Elementary", "RiceUniversity School of Mathematics Project", "BrainLink"-Baylor College of Medicine).Answers to the staff survey indicated that thetraining activities were very beneficial for attain-ment of the program goals. When asked aboutimprovement in training activities, the programstaff expressed the need to expand the training,by including more workshops that are targetedtowards bilingual instruction for middle schoolstudents. Some staff members mentioned needsin specific content areas, such as computer train-ing, technology education, in-depth training forbilingual aides.Oral Spanish proficiency of the Adelante studentswas measured by the Language AssessmentScales (LAS) II to nt the beginning of the schoolyear. The mean le score of all students on theSpanish LAS was about 78. Based on the norma-tive interpretation of the LAS II test, this suggeststhat on average, the students in the program were


jADELANTE...CON GANASI: 1993-94

Limited Spanish Speakers. The mean scalescores of each grade level were between 71 and83 which is also in the Limited Spanish Speakerrange.Oral English proficiency of the Adelante studentswas measured by the LAS II test at the end of theschool year. The mean scale score of all studentsat the end of the first year of instruction was about48. This suggest that on average the students inthe program were Non-English Speakers accord-ing to the LAS test. The mean scale scores ofeach grade level were between 45 and 49 whichis also in the Non-English Speaker range.Academic progress during the first year of instruc-tion in the Ade lante program was measured bythe Spanish Assessment of Basic Education(SABE) test. The SABE test data for the Adelantestudents suggest that overall the students inAdelante Program made significant progress bothin Reading and in Math. Specifically, students inthe program made on average 3.9 NCE pointsprogress or moved from the 32nd percentile to39th percentile in Spanish reading proficiency,and in math students made 4.1 NCE pointsprogress, or moved from the 29th percentile to the

36th percentile.The overall mean attendance of the Adelantestudents was at the 97% level which is also thetarget level for all students in the State of Texas.This means that on average, all the students in theprogram achieved tie State goal for attendance.These results were corroborates when theAdelante students' attendance rates were com-pared to the attendaoce rates of the comparisongroup (middle school students with matched de-mographic characteristics ir ESL program). Thatis, both the seventh and eighth graders had ahigher attendance rates than their counterparts inthe comparison group, while the sixth graders'mean attendance was below the rates of thestudents in the comparison group. However weneed to note that, the only statistically significantdifference was between the 99% attendance ofthe 8th graders in the Adelante program and the96% attendance of their counterparts in the com-parison group.The overall promotion rate of the Adelante stu-dents was 94%. One hundred percent of theAdelante students in grade six were promoted,while 91% of the seventh graders and 92% of the

eighth graders were promoted. The Adelantegroup had on average a higher promotion ratethan the comparison group. The Adelante sixthgraders outperformed their counterparts in thecomparison group by seven percent, while theseventh and eight graders in Adelante programoi.itperformed their counterparts by 5% and 1%respectively.The primary mechanism for parent involvementwas the 6 parent involvement meetings that wereconducted throughout the school year. Com-pared to other parents' involvement meetings atthe same school, the Adelante parents' meetingswere well attended. About 33% of the parentsattended at least one meeting (except for the fifthmeeting). The answers to the parents' surveyindicated that parents were very satisfied with themeetings. The parents indicated four main areasof learning that took place in the meetings: par-ents' responsibility fortheirchild's education, howto help my child to learn, report on my child atschool, and, youth and adolescent risk areas.Teachers indicated that in addition to parents'involvement meetings, parents were invited andcame to their child's ,:ass to participate in instruc-tional activities. Specifically, parents helped intutoring and preparing instructional materials fortheir children's classes. Parents also escortedclasses on field trips that were conducted through-out the year. Parents helped in the preparation forCinco de Mayo activities and for 8th grade gradu-ation celebrations. Generally, there was an agree-ment among teachers that the program staff couldincrease its efforts to get parents' more involvedin the program. Specific ideas that were men-tioned included: offer technical education toparents, Improve the communication system withparents, invitt, parents to help in 'hall monitoring',initiate the program "Mathematica Para La Familia"for parents, invite more parents to tutor programstudents, and, start the parent involvement meet-ings earlier in the school year.On the students' survey, the students reported ahigh degree of satisfaction with their school andwith their teachers. Students indicated that theirteachers expected them to work hard and felt thattheir teachers helped them do their best. Thestudents also reported a very high degree ofagreement with the statement "I feel that I madea lot of progress in my studies since the beginning

HISD RESEARCH AND EVALUATION 3

t)


of the year". However, students felt that they stillneed more help from their teachers to improvetheir grades. The relatively low degree of agree-ment with the statement "My teachers think that Iam important" also suggest that students expectmore support from their teachers. Students re-ported a high degree of satisfaction with Spanishinstruction. In accordance with that, studentswere somewhat reluctant to move to all Englishinstruction. In relation to social network of stu-dents, it was found as expected, that most of thestudents' friends were from their class. About 40students made some comment on the open partof the survey. Most of the comments expressedhigh satisfaction with the program.The parents' survey also indicated a high degreeof satisfaction with the program. Specifically,parents believed that: their children enjoyed go-ing to school, teachers had high expectations forthe students, teachers helped the children ad-vance in their studies and the children learned agreat deal in school.Based on the answers to the staff surveys andinterviews and the school principal interview, three

general areas of program strength were identi-fied: the external support, the learning contextand the social-emotional context. The strongexternal support was based on several sources.The first major source of support was the Title VIIgrant money awarded to the district by the officeof Bilingual Education and Minority Affairs in theU.S. Department of Education. The grant moneywas used to hire qualified staff, buy appropriateinstructional materials, and conduct staff training.The Houston Independent School District pro-vided the program with computer software, laserdisk players and materials, lab materials andsupplies, and staff training. There was a feelingamong staff members that the district administra-tion and the school staff had a strong motivationto provide any help that was needed. The datasuggested that the learning context which wasdesigned by the project coordinator and imple-mented by the program teachers, content re-source specialists, and aides, was a major con-tributor to the initial success of the program. Thelearning context included: highly qualified andtrained teachers, program coordinator and teach-ers' aides, a well designed instructional program,adequate and appropriate instructional materials,:Ind an organized, clean, and quite teaching envi-

ronments. The data also indicated that the pro-gram staff led by the project coordinator weresuccessful in creating a social emotional contextthat was conducive to effective learning. Accord-ing to staff comments, students felt: secured in acommunity environment, not isolated and/or alien-ated from the school as a whole, and that theycould always find someone who would listen tothem.Staff recommendations for program improvementsfocused on the following areas: increase programpublicity, expand students recruitment, providestudent transportation, improve tutorial instruc-tion for mid-year entries into the program, ex-pand computer use in Spanish, increase thenumber of field trips, strengthen students' disci-pline by increased parents' involvement, and,increase integration of the program to the wholeschool. Students suggested improvements inseveral areas: use more computers, offer moreart classes, teach more English, be more strictwith students, and, improve student-parent com-munication.

Recommendations1. Results of the LAS test suggest that the English

oral proficiency of most students in the programwas at the Non-English Speakers level. There-fore, the ESL instructional effort should be contin-ued and intensified.

2. The budget for 1993-94 school year was ap-proved in late August, 1993. The budget for thenext two years of implementation should be ap-proved as early as possible so that the summerinstitute for the Adelante teachers can be offeredduring the Summer and enable the purchase ofinstructional material before the school year starts.

3. Only one in every three parents attended at leastone parent involvement meeting. The programstaff should implement their own ideas and theideas suggested by parents that will lead to in-creased parent involvement in the program. Someof theses suggestions include: offer technicaleducation to parents, improve the communica-tion system with parents, invite parents to help in'hall monitoring', initiate the program "MathematicaPara La Familia", invite more parents to tutorprogram students, start the parent involvementmeetings earlier next year, and, schedule the

4 HISD RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

IADELANTE...CON GANASI: 1993-94

meetings at more convenient time for parents.

4. Many important ideas and recommendations werecompiled from the parents, students and the staffsurvey. These suggestions for improvement aredetailed in the results section of this evaluation.The program staff should review these sugges-tions and implement those that have the pc ientialto increase the effectiveness of the iAdelante...conGanas! program.

HMO RESEARCH AND EVALUATION 5

jADELANTE...CON GANAS!:A TITLE VII TRANSITIONALRANSITIONAL BILINGUAL PROGRAM

IN BURBANK MIDDLE SCHOOL

1993-94

The purpose of this report was to describe first year of the implementation of the!Adelante...con Ganas! project, a three-year Title VII grant for bilingual program inBurbank Middle School in the Houston Independent School District. The programconsisted of three levels of bilingual instruction: Preliterate, Beginning, and Intermediate.Students were placed in one of the three levels following state and district guidelines. Theinstruction implemented in this program was designed to serve students with little or noEnglish facility. In addition, it addressed the needs of those Limited English Proficient(LEP) students with little or no formal schooling, a condition that resulted in a low levelof academic achievement. The Transitional Bilingual Program that was used, employedboth English and Spanish as the medium of instruction. The present evaluation involvedanalysis of students' standardized tests data, a staff survey, a parent survey, a studentsurvey and class observations. The findings indicate that students in the program madesignificant progress in Math and Spanish Reading. At the end of the first year, Englishoral proficiency of students was at the Non-Speakers level. All participants in theprogram including students, teachers and parents, were very satisfied with all of theprogram components. Recommendations for improvements are discussed.

Introduction

The Houston Independent School District (HISD)received from the office of Bilingual and MinorityEducation at the U.S. Department of Education, athree-years grant for implementing a Title VII programstarting in August 1993. The first-year grant totaled$175,000 and HISD's in-kind contribution totaled$189,691 for the 1993-94 school year. Programobjectives included instructional, training, and paren-tal involvement objectives and were based on needsof LEP students at Burbank Middle School who havebeen identified as meeting the criteria for eligibility andwho have never been served under Title VII. Newstudents who met the eligibility criteria were allowedto participate as they enrolled.

Description of Project ContextApproximately 11 percent of the 1991-92 HISD

student population was born outside of the United

States. Almost 85 percent of these students origi-nated from Spanish speaking countries. Approxi-mately one third of these students were recent immi-grants who have been attending a U.S. school for lessthan three years.

At Burbank Middle School, the number of recentarrivals who originated in Spanish speaking countrieshas been rising rapidly. In the 1991-92 school year,there were over 400 LEP students enrolled out ol aschool population of 1560. Eighty-six of those LEPstudents (approximately 6 percent of the school popu-lation) were recent arrivals. In August, 1993, onehundred recent arrivals having little or no English skills

were dentified as most in need of specialized instruc-tion.

In a further effort to accommodate similar LEPstudents in neighboring middle schools without aspecialized program, Burbank has been acceptingtransfer students into the Adelante program on aneed/space availability basis. A number of area


9


middle schools have shown considerable interest inthe project and several LEP students have alreadytransferred into the program.

Criteria for Student EnrollmentThe target population that project jAdelante

con Ganas!served was monolingual Spanish speak-ing middle school students who have arrived in thedistrict during the last two years. They have beenidentified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) by theschool's Language Proficiency Assessment Commit-tee (LPAC) according to state and district guidelines.

The students identified as most in need of special-ized instruction were recent arrivals to Burbank hav-ing few or no English skills. Some students enteringthe project had 3 years or less of formal previousschooling. These students were non-literate or semi-literate in their native language and were classified inthe District as preliterate or "low-schooled". Instruc-tion for these recent arrivals included survival skills forcoping with the American school system, basic lit-eracy skills, and an introduction to oral/aural commu-nication in English.

Project Goals and Objectives

Program GoalThe overall goal of this program was for students

to successfully progress through a linguistically anddevelopmentally appropriate sequence of languageand content skills and move into the district's tradi-tional Advanced ESL program.

Instructional ObjectivesProject Adelante was designed to meet the fol-

lowir.g instructional objectives:1. Students entering the program at the preliterate

level and successfully progressing through theintermediate level will demonstrate literacy asmeasured by one or more of the following:

Portfolio Assessments;Anecdotal Records/Teachers' Survey;Standardized Achievement Tests (SABE).

2. Project students will demonstrate oral Englishproficiency at Level 3 of the English LAS test bythe end of their intermediate year.

3. Project students, who enter at a given ESL level,will progress through highersubsequent levels asthey master the state ESL and grade EssentialElements as measured by:

teacher check lists;

project progress reports;LPAC review.

4. Seventy percent of students who participate in the

project at least two years and complete the inter-mediate level will continue into high school asindicated by:

student survey;High School 4 year plan;9th grade course selection sheets.

Training ObjectiveProject staff will participate in a minimum of 40

hours of comprehensil, a training, provided by thedistrict and other local agencies known for their exper-tise in working with the target population. Trainingtopics will include but not be limited to:

Native Language Instruction;Teaching the Preliterate student;ESL in the Content Area;Interdisciplinary Planning;Cooperative Learning;Parental Involvement;Multicultural Awareness.

Parent Involvement ObjectiveParents of the project students will participate in

at least 3 school sponsored activities designed toenhance student self-esteem.

Project ImplementationStudents who entered the iAdelante ... con Ganas!

project in August 1993 and remained at the projectsite throughout the 1993-94 school year received tenfull months of instructional services. Those studentswho came to the project school after the beginning ofthe school year or moved away before the end of theschool year, received instructional services for theentire time they were enrolled in the project school.The only exception was one student who was movedto an Exceptional Education program in order to moreappropriately address his special needs. Each day,the project students received six class periods ofinstruction from project teachers and one class periodof Physical Education with non-project teachers in amainstream setting (See Figure 1).

Instructional ProgramThe instructional program was divided into three

levels: the preliterate, the beginning, and intermedi-ate. The program instructional components are de-picted in Figure 1. In the preliterate levels, the project


(

IADELANTECON GANAS!: 1993-94

served students with limited literacy skills in the firstlanguage. For the preliterate students the programprovided ESL instruction as well as literacy and con-cept development and content in the first language.ESL instruction was primarily oral, focusing on com-munication and vocabulary. Content instruction in thefirst language focused on basic content informationand skills.

In the beginning and intermediate levels, theprogram was designed to serve the needs of studentswith higher levels of native language literacy andacademic skills. The beginning levels developed oralEnglish communication and vocabulary, while ref in-ig the vocabulary and grammar of the first language.

Instruction in the academic area continued conceptdevelopment through the first language. The interme-diate level addressed both oral and written skills inEnglish. At the same time, first language instructionin the content areas gradually incorporated the En-glish vocabulary of those content areas.

Project students participated in the followingcourses:

Spanish Language Arts,Spanish Reading,Bilingual Math, Science, and Social Studies,English as a Second Language, andPhysical Education.English as a Second Language (ESL) and ESL

Reading addressed the need for basic English Lan-guage Arts instruction. These courses provided theLEP student with systematic and sequential instruc-tion of English language skills. The focus was oncommunicative competency, grammar, speaking,

writing, composition and the structure of the lan-guage.

Students at the preliterate and beginning levelsworked to develop oral communication and vocabu-lary. At these levels, reading and writing activitieswere primarily structured and controlled. Students inthe intermediate level used an equal amount of timefor written and oral skills. Students at all levels wereencouraged to interact with one another in order topractice their English skills and gain confidence intheir abilities. Activities were created to ensure thisinteraction.

Spanish Language Arts is the counterpart to ESL.In this class, the students' Spanish literacy skills aredeveloped in order to provide them with the tools toenhance their cognitive skills as the base for secondlanguage transfer. The learning focuses on develop-ing and strengthening the students' home languageand incorporates many of the same strategies used inESL and English Language Arts. In the SpanishReading class, the emphasis was literacy. The stu-dent was exposed to a print rich environment with avariety of literature and other reading materials avail-able in Spanish such as newspapers and magazines.Those students whose formal schooling has beeninterrupted or completely lacking were the focus ofspecial literacy instruction in the Spanish LanguageArts, Spanish reading and ESL classes.

The preliterate and beginning levels content areacourses were primarily taught using Spanish althoughEnglish was gradually incorporated. This providedstudents the opportunity to acquire new concepts inMathematics, Social Studies, and Science in their

Figure 1: Instructional Program

Preliterate Level Beginning Level Intermediate Level

Subject Classperiod*

Subject Classperiod

Subject Classperiod

Preliterate ESL 1 Beginning ESL 1 Intermediate ESL 1

Span. Reading/ Literacy 1 Span. Reading 1 ESL Reading

Spanish Language/Arts 1 Spanish Language/Arts 1 Spanish Lang./Arts

Bilingual Math 1 Bilingual Math 1 Bilingual Math 1

Bilingual Science 1 Bilingual Science 1 Bilingual Science

Bilingual Social Studies 1 Bilingual Social Studies 1 Bilingual Social Studies

Physical Education " Physical Education" 1 Physical Education" 1

Each Class Period-45 MinutesAll English Instruction. Students are mainstreamed, but the PE teacher was trained in ESL methodology


11


native language while developing proficiency in theEnglish language.

In the intermediate level courses, the instructiongradually increased basic English use, which thestudents understood. As the year progressed and thestudents became more proficient with the language,the amount of context embedded material ''sras re-duced. Even when the instruction was in English, theteacher used the native language for comprehensionchecks, clarification, positive reinforcement, and indi-vidual tutoring. In addition, students were involved incooperative project work in Spanish to generate,evaluate and solve problems illustrating conceptslearned.

Physical Education was taught in English. Theidentified instructor was a certified PE teacher whoreceived some additional multicultural/ESL trainingprovided by the school and this project in order tobecome aware of the learning needs of the LEPstudent. During P.E. class, students weremainstreamed and interacted with their peer group inthe language they choose.

Instructional Times for all grade and ESL levelsThe instructional program was divided into three

levels: The preliterate level, the beginning level andthe intermediate level. The instructional time wasdivided equt y among subjects for all grade and ESLlevels as Figure 1 indicates.

Training of Program StaffAlthough a Summer Institute was planned it was

not implemented in the Summer of 1993 as approvalfor the project was received in late August, 1993.Rather than providing a summer institute the stafftraining and development for all project personnelwas ongoing throughout the school year. Projectteachers were encouraged and supported by theproject to attend workshops and conferences whichaddressed appropriate topics. All project teachersparticipated in at least 33 hours of comprehensivetraining provided by the District and other local andnational agencies known for their expertise in workingwith the target population. Training included thefollowing topics:

Native Language InstructionTeaching the Preliterate studentESL in the Content AreaInterdisciplinary PlanningCooperative Learning

Parental InvolvementMulticultural Awareness

A Summer Institute is being planned for 1994.This training is being specifically designed for projectteachers in conjunction with the Southwest Educa-tional Development Laboratories (SEDL). The insti-tute topics will include:

Native Language InstructionESL in the Content AreaInterdisciplinary PlanningCooperative LearningParental InvolvementMulticultural Awareness

Other Program ElementsThe teachers for this program had classrooms in

close proximity to each other wherever possible. Thisconfiguration increased teacher dialogue and pro-vided opportunities for interdisciplinary planning. Fur-thermore, thematic units across the curriculum wereused instead of trying to address each subject sepa-rately. For example, when studying the history ofTexas in social studies, the topic was also integratedinto the readings of the Spanish and ESL classes.

The thematic units used were both participatoryand cooperative. Instructional strategies emphasizedsmall group interaction, heterogeneous grouping, andactive, informal learning activities that required a highdegree of interaction. This approach enabled stu-dents to take an active part in their own learning whilethey explored a theme in depth.

The core group of project teachers collaboratedas an interdisciplinary team working together to plan,develop, and implement integrated lessons. In addi-tion, the teachers had worked with non-project His-tory, Art and Music teachers to incorporate main-stream students into the interdisciplinary units. Thiscooperative atmosphere provided additional opportu-nities for project students to interact with mainstreamstudents while working on cooperative subjects.

in addition to Burbank's in-house computer writ-ing lab (COMPAQ computers), the District's Multilin-gual Department provided a bilingual computer lab atthe project site. This bilingual computer lab consistedof five MAC LCII computers and an Imagewriterprintei . These computers were incorporated into theproject and became a vital component in all areas ofthe instructional program. Project students receivedinstruction in basic computer skills and in the use of a



word processing program for students. Utilizing wordprocessing capabilities, project students were able toenhance their writing skills both in English and Span-ish as they published their work.

Field trips into the community were especiallyvaluable to students with limited educationa! experi-ences. The trips allowed for the development ofcultural orientation and survival skills. Such activitieswere included in order to provide a basis for anaccentuated range of language activities. In addition,students were able to share with their non-Englishspeaking parents information about important educa-tional community resources. Four very successfulfield trips took place in which the students were ableto receive real life practice while moving about in thecommunity. These excursions included a simulatedtropical forest, local historical sites, zoological gar-dens, and the museum of natural science.

Materials Used in the ProgramSince mainstream all-English textbooks which

were designed for monolingual English speakers wereused, the level instructional level of the target lan-guage employed (English) was inappropriate for usewith LEP students. Therefore, the project teachershad identified, and purchased with project fuilUs,native language texts and materials in all subjectareas that present key concepts. Because the stu-dents had such widely varying levels of literacy,project teachers worked collaboratively to review andselect age-appropriate materials that encompassedall levels of ability. Written in the student's nativelanguage, these materials promotes cognitive growthand academic success in the first language. Skillsand concepts were then transferred to the students'second and developing language, English. Appen-dix A details the major textbooks that were used in theproject

Project Information and Experience Dissemina-tion

Curriculum materials and lessons developed bythe project teachers are currently being compiled,organized and will be made available to non-projectschool:3 at the end of Summer 1994. Training for ESLand content teachers has been opened to othermiddle schools in the District in an effort to expand thedelivery of Bilingual instruction to similar populationsin non-project schools.

HISD RESEARCH AND EVALUATION J

Pre-referral Evaluation ProceduresGifted & Talented Procedure. The gifted and

talented identification process consisted of two dis-tinct stages. In the first stage, a talent pool is identifiedthrough population assessment and nomination byteachers. The second phase involved compiling andprocessing student information. In this and late phases

of the identification process, both objective and sub-jective standards are used in considering students forthe program. A pool of students to be considered maybe obtained form both past performances and nomi-nations.

In this Title VII project, four students have beenmonitored for future consideration by gifted/talentedprograms. High achievement in both English LAS andSABE scores were used for monitoring these stu-dents. Class grades and teacher observations andrecommendations are also considered. Before thisproject's inception, LEP students were rarely moni-tored or considered forthe Gifted & Talented program.

Special Education Procedures (ExceptionalEducation). Pre-referral procedures for ExceptionalEducation begin with parent and teacher observa-tions at home and in the classroom. When problemsare observed, a number of factors are then consid-ered (language, mental, emotional, and achievementlevel). These observations are then reported to theChild Study Department and the referral process isbegun.

In the Title VII project, one student was cbservedto have serious emotional and behavioral problems.Because he was in a setting where teachers couldobserve him in his native language and communicatefreely with hip mother, his disabilities were quicklyidentified. Furthermore, the project teachers wereable to act as liaisons between the student's motherand the school referral committee. In a regular all-English program, this student's problems could havegone unidentified for either a year or two or until hehad learned enough English to make himself under-stood.

Staff QualificationsProject Teacher/Coordinator. The project

teacher/coordinator taught Spanish Language Arts inthe project and coordinated, in collaboration with theDirector of Bilingual Programs and Burbank MiddleSchool's principal, the implementation and operationof this project. The project coordinator has seventeenyears experience in H.I.S.D. as a teacher and bilin-gual consultant. She is certified in English and Span-

11


ish and holds a masters degree in Applied EnglishLinguistics. She is currently .a doctoral candidate atthe University of Houston in the field of ESL andBilingual Education. She has been the ESL coordina-tor at Burbank Middle School since 1987 and isknowledgeable and well versed in the instructionalneeds of LEP students.

School Principal. The Burbank Middle SchoolPrincipal has been with H.I.S.D. over 16 years. Shehas considerable experience in managing schoolswith large Hispanic populations and has worked closely

with the Hispanic community. The principal providedinstructional leadership and management for both thestudents and teachers of this project. She also workedwith parents, students, and teachers to promote thesuccess of this project.

Director of Instruction for Multilingual Pro-grams. The Director of Instruction for MultilingualPrograms has been an administrator in Houston'sBilingual programs for over twelve years, and hasdeveloped bilingual and ESL programs at the elemen-tary, middle, and high school levels. She is wellversed in the identification, placement and overallinstruction of LEP students, and has a strong desire topromote bilingual programs at the secondary levels.She also participates in the recruitment and training of

ESL and bilingual teachers. The Director of Instruc-tion for Multilingual Programs with the Teacher/Coor-dinator and the school Principal coordinated the imple-mentation and operation of this program.

Project Teachers and Content Resource Spe-cialists. In the state of Texas, teachers may becertified in bilingual education for grades Pre-K through6 only. Project Adelante included two H.I.S.D. teach-ers certified in bilingual education for the sixth grade,who are not normally placed at the middle schoollevel. One teacher had the beginning level sixth gradestudents while the other teacher had the intermediatelevel sixth grade students. These teachers providedinstruction in all areas described above except Physi-cal Education.

In the seventh and eighth grade, all teachers andcontent resource specialists were bilingual. Theywere also certified in their content area. The ESLteacher had an ESL endorsement with extensiveeducation in linguistics and ESL methodology. Span-ish Language Arts and Spanish reading requires ateacher to be certified in Language Arts, as well asfluent in Spanish. The teacher has a native levelSpanish language skills as well as a knowledge andgenuine appreciation of the Hispanic culture. The

12

math, science, and social studies resource specialistswere certified in their content area and are fluentSpanish speakers.

All of the projectteachers had at least a Bachelor'sdegree with the appropriate Texas Teacher Certifica-tions and endorsements. In addition, with the excep-tion of the ESL teacher, all are bilingual in Spanish and

English and have passed the appropriate test ofSpanish language skills.

Bilingual Instructional Teacher Aides. Thetwo bilingual instructional teacher aides were vitalmembers of the project team. They are fluent inSpanish and English. In addition they were to re-quired to pass aptitude and bilingual tests.

The function of these instructional aides includedthe following tasks:1. Tutoring project students.2. Assisting project students who enroll later in the

year3. Translating:

between students and teachers;between teachers and parents;between students or parents and office staff.

4. Making telephone calls:to parents to check on excessive absences;to schedule teacher/parents conferences;to invite parents to attend a school activity.The aides also assisted with maintaining and

updating LEP records for project students.Research and Evaluation Specialist. The re-

search and evaluation specialist designed the pro-gram evaluation, compiled and analyzed data, andwrote the end of year evaluation report on the iAdelantecon ...Ganas! program. The research and evaluationspecialist holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychologyand has seven years of research, training and devel-opment experience in various organizations. For thelast two years he has been working in the Researchand Evaluation department within Houston Indepen-dent School District where he has been responsiblefor the evaluation of Multilingual programs in thedistrict.

Parental InvolvementParental involvement was a critical factor in form-

ing a positive link between the school and home insupport of the student. Involving parents in meaning-ful school activities provides that link. For this reasonparents were invited regularly to attend classroompresentations of student projects and oral reports aswell as to other activities such as field trips. A number


jADELANTE-CON GANASI: 1993-94

of parents accompanied the classes on the four fieldtrips taken this year.

In an attempt to discuss a number of specialproblems encountered in the school, the project spon-sored a special meeting in December exclusively forproject parents. This meeting was so successful andwell received that the teachers and parents agreed tomeet monthly when ever possible. The project par-ents and teachers met four additional times coveringsubjects such as: a) study skills, b) communityresources, and c) planning high school studies. Thefinal meeting in May covered available summer activi-ties. At this final meeting, students presented a playthat they had written and produced. These monthlyparent meetings deemed to be were very successfuland will be continued in the 1994-95 school year.

Evaluation Goal and Research QuestionsThe goal of this evaluation report was to describe

the implementation of the !Ade lante...con Ganas!project in Burbank middle school during 1993-94school year. The following research questions were

addressed:1. What were the demographic characteristics of the

LEP students that were served by the Program?2. In what training activities did the program staff

participate? How did the training helped theprogram staff achieve their instructional goals?And, how the training can be improved?

3. What was the students' oral Spanish proficiencyat the beginning of the first year of instruction asmeasured by the LAS test?

4 What was the students' oral English proficiency atthe end of the first year of instruction as measuredby the LAS test?

5 What were the changes in the students' achieve-ments in the content areas as measured by theSABE test during the first year of instruction in the

Adelante program?6. What was the mean attendance of the Adelante

students and what was the difference in atten-dance rates between the Adelante group and thecomparison group for 1993-94 school year?

7. What was the promotion rate of the Adelantestudents and what was the difference of promo-tion rates between the Ade lante group and thecomparison group for 19934)4 school year?

8. How were parents involved in the program andwhat were their perceptions of this involvement?

9. What were the students' perceptions of and reac-


tions towards the program?10. What were the perceived strengths of the Adelante

con Ganas program?11. What were the recommendations of program

staff, students and parents, for improving thequality of the program implementation?

Method

ParticipantsThe Adelante program served more than 120

students during the 1993-94 school year. Since thetarget population of the program included recentimmigrants, about 40 of those students entered theprogram after it had been already started. Therefore,in order to evaluate the full effects of the program, theparticipants in this program evaluation were only the82 students that were enrolled in the Adelante pro-gram for at least 135 instructional days. The otherparticipants in this evaluation were: the students'parents, the program staff-teachers (n=6), bilingualteacher aides (n=2), the project coordinator, the schoolprincipal, and the Bilingual and ESL programs directorat the Multilingual and Accelerated Instruction Depart-ment.

In order to adequately assess the effects of theAdelante program on students' performance, a con-trol/comparison group had to be formed in the firstyear of implementation. The identification of studentsfor the comparison group was performed by matchingthe following variables: Ethnicity-Hispanic, LEP sta-tus-identified as LEP and served by bilingua! or ESLcertified teachers, Program PlacementESL. in addi-tion, computerized matching of the Adelante studentswith a comparison group was performed with respectto the following variables: ESL Level, and OriginalDate of Entry to the program. Based on these match-ing variables 159 students were identified as a control/comparison group.

Evaluation Design and Data Coliection Proce-dures

In order to document and analyze the Adelanteprogram's success during its first year of implementa-tion, and provide a base line for the next two years ofimplementation, a comprehensive evaluation designwas used. This evaluation design is based on analy-sis of several data sources that are summarized inTable 1.

1. Oral Language Proficiency in Spanish was

13

IADELANTE-CON GANASI: 1993-94

Table 1: End of First Year Evaluation: Data Collection and Analysis Framework

Domains/Outcomes/Goal Areas Instruments Statistical Analysis Content Analysis

1. English/Spanish Oral Language LAS II (Spanish & Descriptive Statistics N/AProficiency: English versions)

2. Students Perceptions Student Survey Descriptive Statistics Yes

3. Project Staff Perceptions Surveys/Interviews N/A Yes

4. Parental Involvement Assessment Parent Survey Descriptive Statistics YesSign-in Forms

5. Ethnographic Observations Notes N/A Yes

6. Baseline Data on Project group and Promotion Descriptive Statistics N/AComparison/Control group Attendance

measured by LAS II-Spanish (for technical informa-tion see next section) as the students entered theprogram. Oral Language Proficiency in English wasmeasured by LAS II-English (fortechnical informationsee next section) in the end of the school year. Thesemeasurements provided for two evaluation goals.The first was measuring the progress students at theprogram have made on English oral proficiency. Thesecond goal was to measure the progress studentshave made in Spanish oral language proficiency. Inthis first year evaluation report, the oral languageproficiency test scores reported serve only as thebaseline for the next two years of implementation andevaluation.

2. Students' perceptions or the quality of theprogram and theirfeedback on needed improvementswas elicited through the students' survey, written inSpanish, which included both open and clos( d ques-tions (see Appendix B). The students' survey was

nducted during the last month of the school year.,e response rate for the students' survey was about

95%.3. Project Staff Perceptions of the quality of the

program and theirfeedback on needed improvementswas elicited through staff survey that included onlyopen questions (see Appendix C). Following thesurvey, each staff member including the programcoordinator and the school principal were individuallyinterviewed. The staff survey and interviews wereconducted at the end of the spring semester. Theresponse rate for the staff survey was 100%.

4. Parental Involvement Assessment was con-ducted by means of the program sign-in forms and theparents' surveys. Parents' perceptions of the qualityof the parents' involvement meetings and their feed-back on needed improvements was elicited throughthe parents' survey written in Spanish, which included

14

both open and closed questions (see Appendix D).The parents' survey was conducted during the lastparents' involvement meeting of the school year. Inaddition, surveys were sent to parents who did notattend the last parent program. The response rate forthe parents' survey was about 44%.

5. Ethnographic Observations were conductedby the research specialist in the six bilingual and ESLclasses that participated in the Title VII program. Theobservations were conducted both in the Fall and theSpring semesters.

6. Baseline Data on Project Group and Com-parison/Comparison group forthe first year of imple-mentation was measured on two dimensions by thefollowing measurements: Promotion/Dropoutdatafrom the District Students' Masterfile, and, Atten-dancedata from the District Students' Masterfile. Forthe next two years of implementation data, EnglishOral Language proficiency of the comparison groupwill be added. In the third year of implementation theAdelante and the Comparison groups will be testedwith the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test.

Reliability and objectivity of the methods usedto identify needs and to assess students perfor-mance

In 1979, Houston ISD implemented an officialidentification process to identify LEP students. Sincethen the State of Texas has required that an Englishwritten achievemert test and an oral language profi-ciency test be included in the identification process.The following tests are used in the Houston ISD foridentification and placement into the project as-well-as for assessment of student achievement.

Language Assessment Scales II (LAS II). Forthe identification of LEP students eligible for thisprogram and for assessment of linguistic improve-



ment, the oral Language Assessment Scales Level II(LAS) for grades 6 and up, both in English andSpanish were administered. The LAS II tests providean overall picture of oral linguistic proficiency basedon a student's performance across four linguisticsubsystems. Neither is a translated test but ratherboth are two totally independent tests, each based onthe same analysis of four language subsystems. Thevalidity and reliability of the tests have been well-established since 1976 (see De Avila & Duncan,1981).

Spanish Assessment of Basic Skills (SABE).To assess native language proficiency and literacy,the SABE was administered. This test is a series ofnorm-referenced tests for grades one through eight. Itwas designed to measure achievement in the basicskills according to state and district curricula and isused with students who receive instruction in Span-ish. It assesses achievement in areas such as read-

comprehension, language use, math computationand math concepts. Assessment data provided by thetest include grade equivalency, stanines and nationalpercentiles. Since the SABE combines characteris-tics of norm-referenced as well as criterion-refer-enced tests, it provides extensive information aboutthe instructional needs of students. The validity andreliability of the tests have been well-establishedsince 1988 (see SABE Technical Report, 1988).

Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS).The state-wide criterion-referenced Texas Assess-ment of Academic Skills (TAAS) tests, was first ad-ministered to Texas students in October of the 1990-91 school year. Starting in 1993-94 school year Texasstudents were tested with TAAS in grades threethrough eight and exit level (grade 10). TAAS mea-sures student mastery of the essential elements con-tained in the State Board of Education Rules forCurriculum in several basic areas: mathematics, read-

ing, writing, science and social studies. Other than thewritten composition, a multiple-choice format is used.The Spanish version administered only in grade 3does not include a written composition. Test contentderives from material that should have been masteredin the previous grade. Students must demonstratemastery of all exit level subtests in order to receive ahigh school diploma. The exit level tests are adminis-tered three times during the eleventh grade and threetimes during the twelfth grade years.

Data AnalysisThe STATVIEW software package was used to

perform the statistical analysis on the SABE scoresand English LAS scores. It was also used to producefrequency distributions responses to the staff, stu-dent, and the parent surveys. The EXCEL softwarepackage was used to summarize data from the threequestionnaires. Content analysis was employed tosummarize and extract patterns of responses to theopen questions on the surveys, the observations andthe interviews. SPSS was used to match the compari-son group to the Adelante group and also to producedescriptive statistics for both groups.

Results

What were the demographic characteristics of theLEP students that were served by the program?

Table 2 presents the distribution of students bygrade level and by gender.

Table 2: Distribution of Students by Grade Level andby Gender

Grades

Female Male. Total

Number Percent Number Percent

6th 8 34.8% 15 65.2% 23

7th 16 43.5% 17 51.5% 33

8th 15 57.7% 11 42.3% 26

Total 39 47.6% 43 52.4% 82

The results in Table 2 indicate that the number ofmales and female student in the program were almostequal. However, in the sixth grade there were moremales than females and in the eighth grade there weremore females than males.

Table 3 presents the number of students in theprogram by country of origin.

Table 3: Distribution of Students by Country of Origin

Country of OriginEI-Salvador

Honduras

Mexico

USA

Missing

Total

Number

12

1

49

7

13

82

Percent

14.6%

1.2%

59.8%

8.5%

15.9%

100.0%

As can be seen from Table 3, about seventy-fivepercent of the students in the program reported thattheir country of origin was in Latin America. Of those


jADELANTE...CON GAMS!: 1993-94

coming from Latin America, 78% or 49 were of Mexi-can origin followed by 15% or 12 students of Salva-doran descent. Only 8.5% were originated in theUnited States. Although about 16% of the studentsdid not report their country of origin, the program staffconfirmed that most of them originated in Latin America.

One hundred percent of the students who completedthe Home Language survey indicated that their homelanguage was Spanish.

Based on students' LAS scores both in Spanishand English, and the students' SABE scores, theLanguage Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC)assigned the incoming students to different instruc-tional levels. Table 4 presents the distribution ofstudents in the program by ESL instructional levelsand by grades.

Table 4: Distribution of Students by ESL Instruc-tional Levels and by Grades.

Preliterate &Beginning

Intermediate

Grades Number Percent Number Percent6th 13 56% 10 44%

7th 12 36% 21 64%

8th 9 35% 17 65%

Total 34 41% 48 59%

The results in Table 4 indicate that 41% of stu-dents in the program were classified as either Pre-Literate or Beginning ESL level, while 59% percent ofthe Adelante students were in the Intermediate ESLlevel. Based on this distribution and the additionalstudents who entered the program after it had beenstarted, five classes were formed: One 6th gradeclass that included all levels, two 7th grade classes(one for each instructional level) and two 8th gradeclasses (one for each instructional level).

In what training activities did the program staffparticipate? How did the training help the pro-gram staff achieve their instructional goals? And,how can the training be improved?

Table 5 details the training activities in which theprogram staff took part before and during the 1993-94school year. In addition to the training activities listedin Table 5, members of the program staff participatedindividually in training sessions that correspond totheir area of interest. For example, the programcoordinator participated in a two-days workshop titled"Exploring options for LEP students through success-ful Title VII Projects" which was offered by SouthwestEducational Development Laboratory/ Multilingual Re-source Center on November 9-10, 1993. A math andscience teacher participated in several content-re-lated inservices: "Mathematica Para La Familia", "MathEnrichment and Extension for the Elementary", "RiceUniversity School of Mathematics Project", and "BrainLink"-Baylor College of Medicine.

Answers to the staff survey indicated that thetraining activities were very beneficial for attainmentof the program goals. Several quotes from the staffanswers exemplify the contribution of the training:

"The training helped to identify and implementstrategies appropriate for preliterate LEP stu-dents as well as how to implement a bilingualprogram at the secondary level. Since secondaryteachers are not familiar with bilingual strategiesthe training was extremely important in learninghow to incorporate English into a bilingual pro-gram"."It helped me to better understand the program.Also, I (better) understand the students needsand make me aware of the students' background,so I could help them attain the objectives of theprogram".

Table 5: Training Activities for the Adelante Staff.

Subject Presenter Date Time # Participants

1. Curriculum/Materials Ms. Velasquez 8/18/93 6 Hours 9

2 ESL strategies for Preliteratestudents

Dr. Jackson 10/11/93 3 Hours 9

3. ESL in the content Area Dr. Jackson 10/11/93 3 Hours 9

4. ESL: English beyond the sociallanguage-ESL in CA.

Dr. Andrea Bemudez 10/23/93 6 Hours 3

5. Portfolio Assessment Ms. Ann Arena 11/15/93 3 Hours 9

6. Interdisciplinary Planning Mr. Robert Stockwill 11/15/93 3 Hours 9

7. Issues/Strategies in teachingcontent based ESL.

Dr. Lily Wong Filmore. 1/8/94 3 Hours 7


"..Teaching me how to perform the (with) class,how to overcome the problems with the students.Not only in the teaching field but also in discipline.

I have learned a lot about bilingual education. Allof that in favor of our students. Getting a goodunderstanding of the process of education".

When asked about improvement in training activi-ties, the program staff expressed the need to expandthe training, by including more workshops that aretargeted towards bilingual instruction for middle schoolstudents. Some staff members mentioned needs inspecific content areas such as computer training,technology education, and in-depth training for bilin-gual aides.

What was the students' oral Spanish proficiencyat the beginning of the first year of instruction asmeasured by the LAS test?

Upon entering the Adelante program the oralproficiency of the students' first language (Spanish),was measured by the LAS test. Table 6 presents thestudents' LAS scale scores on the Spanish oral pro-ficiency test disagregated by grade level.

Table 6: Spanish LAS scale scores by Grade

Grade Number ofstudentsMeanScore

StandardDeviation

6 23 71.42 7.98

7 33 78.07 9.08

8 25* 82.60 6.09

Total 81 77.58 8.97One 8th grader was not tested.

As can be seen in Table 6 the mean scale scoreof all students on the Spanish LAS was about 78.According to the normative interpretation of LASScores and cutoff levels (see De Avila & Duncan,1981), this suggests that on average, the students inthe program were Limited Spanish Speakers. Themean scale scores of each grade level were between71 and 83 which is in the Limited Spanish Speakerrange. However, in order to get a more detailedpicture of the level of Spanish proficiency of studentsin the program we need to look at the distribution ofSpanish proficiency levels within 'ach grade level.Table 7 presents the distributiot of Spanish LASlevels (based on scale scores) by grade.

The distribution of students' Spanish LAS levels

IADELANTECON GANAS1: 1993-94

Table 7: Distribution of Number of Students by Span-ish LAS Levels and by Grade

LASLevels

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

Language Non-SpanishCategories Speaker

LimitedSpanishSpeaker

FluentSpanishSpeaker

Grade Total

6 1 12 10 0 23

7 1 6 20 6 33

8 0 1 15 9 25*

Total 2 19 45 15 81' One 8th arader was not tested.

suggest that 2.5% or 2 of the students in the programwere at Spanish LAS level 1, about 23% or 19 of thestudents were at level 2, 55% or 45 of the student wereat level 3, and 18% or 15 of the students were at level4. When we examine the within grade level distribu-tion of LAS levels, we notice that in the sixth gradeabout 56% were at the Non-Spanish Speakers level(level 1 and 2) and only 44% were at the LimitedSpanish Speakers level (level 3). The distribution ofSpanish proficiency changed at grades 7 and 8. Aswe go up in grade level more students were at theLimited Spanish Speakers level and a considerablepercentage are Fluent Spanish Speakers. Specifi-cally, 60% or 20 of the seventh grade students wereat the Limited Spanish Speakers, and 60% or 15 of theeighth grade students were at the Limited Speakers.Fluent Spanish Speakers were 18% (6 students) and36% (9 students) of the seventh and eight gradestudents respectively.

What was the students' oral English proficiency atthe end of the first year of instruction as measuredby the LAS test?

At the end of the first year of instruction in theAdelante program, the students' English oral profi-ciency was measured by the LAS test. Table 8presents the students' LAS scale scores on the En-

Table 8: End of year mean English LAS scale scoresby Grade.

Grade Number ofstudentsMeanScore

StandardDeviation

6 23 45.51 26.91

7 28 47.67 20.36

8 26 49.48 25.28

Total 77* 47.64 23.87'Five 7th graders were not tested with the English LAS


1

IADELANTE...CON GAN ASI: 1993-94

glish oral proficiency test at the end of the fist year ofinstruction in the Adelante program disagregated bygrade level.

As can be seen in Table 8 the mean scale scoreof all students at the end of the first year of instructionwas about 48. According to the normative interpreta-tion of LAS Scores and cutoff levels (see De Avila &Duncan, 1981), this suggest that on average studentsin the program were Non-English Speakers accordingto the LAS test. The mean scale scores of each gradelevel are hetween 45 and 49 which is in the Non-English Speaker range. However, in order to get amore detailed picture of the level of English profi-ciency of students in the program we need to look atthe distribution of English proficiency levels withineach grade level. Table 9 presents the distribution ofend of year English LAS levels (based on scalescores) by grade.

Table 9: Distribution of End of Year English LASLevels by Grade

Grade Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 TotalLimitedEnglish

SpeakerNon-English

Speaker

6 12 9 2 23

7 11 7 12 30

8 7 5 14 26

Total 30 21 28 *79Three 7th graders were not placed.

The distribution of students' English LAS levelssuggest that about 40% of the students in the programwere at LAS level 1, about 25% were at level 2, and35% were at level 3. When we examine the withingrade level distribution of LAS levels, we notice that inthe sixth grade about 90% were at the Non-EnglishSpeakers level (level 1 and 2) and only about 10%were at the Limited English Speakers level (level 3).The distribution English proficiency was changed atgrades 7 and 8. As we go up in grade level morestudents were at the Limited English Speakers level.Specifically, at the seventh grade 40% of the studentsare at the Limited English Speakers, and in the eighthgrade 54% are at the Limited English Speakers.

What were the changes in the students' achieve-ments in the content areas as measured by theSABE test during the first year of instruction in theAdelante program?

Students achievements in Math and Readingwere measured by the SABE test. Tables 10 and 11details the changes in students' NCE scores by gradelevel on the SABE Reading and Math subtests duringthe first year of instruction.

The SABE test data depicted in Tables 10 and 11

suggest that overall the students in Adelante Programmade significant progress both in reading and in math.Specifically, students in the program made on aver-

Table 10: Changes in NCE SABE Reading Subtest by Grade during 1993-94 School Year

GradeNumber ofStudents Pre -Test` Post-Test*

MeanChange t-value p-value

6 20 41.35 46.00 4.65 2.45 .02

7 33 37.93 43.06 5.12 3.52 .01

8 23 41.52 43.04 1.52 0.90 .38

Total **76 39.91 43.85 3.91 4.08 .0001Pre-testing was conducted during September 1993 and Post-Testing was conducted during May 1994.Six students were not tested.

Table 11: Changes in NCE SABE Math Subtests by Grade during 1993-94 School Year

Grade

6

Number ofStudents

20

Pre-Test* Post-Test*

56.95

MeanChange t-value p-value

7 32 38.96 44.53 5.56 2.76 .01

8 24 37.12 39.33 2.21 0.63 F3

Total ***56 38.20 42.32 4.12 2.19 .03Pre-tasting was conducted during September 1993 and Post-Testing was conducted during May 1994.

** Due to clericAl error no pre-test in Math was conducted in the sixth grade.** Pre-Post test ;cores ww= available only for 56 students.



age 3.9 NCE points progress or moved from the 32ndpercentile to 39th percentile in Spanish reading profi-ciency, and in math students made 4.1 NCE pointsprogress, or moved from the 29th percentile to the36th percentile.

When we analyze the disaggregation of SABEscores by grade level we notice several findings. Inreading, students in grades 6 and 7 made significantprogress of about 4.6 NCE points and 5.1 respec-tively. However, the progress of 1.5 NCE points inreading by the 8th graders was not statistically signifi-cant. In math, only the seventh graders showed

progress of 5.56 NCE points, while theeighth rs' 2.2 NCE progress points were notstatistically significant and progress data was notavailable for the sixth graders math.

An additional perspective on students' academicachievements in the program can be gained fromTable 12 that details the number of students from theprogram who were on the schools' Honor Roll.

Table 12: Number of Honor Roll Students from theAdelante Program

SixWeeks All A's

All A'sand 1B

All A's2B's Total

1st 7 8 9 242nd 5 6 4 153rd 10 10 3 234th 11 13 5 295th 11 9 8 28

As can be gleaned from Table 12, about one inevery four students in the program was on the BurbankMiddle School's Honor Roll. When considering theprogram students' demographics (recent immigrantswith low level of oral proficiency in English and Span-ish) this finding reflects very positively on studentsmotivation and academic achievements.

What was the mean attendance of the Adelantestudents and what was the difference in atten-dance rates between the Adelante group and thecomparison group for 1993-94 school year?

Table 13 depicts the mean attendance rates ofthe Adelante students and of the comparison group(see participants description in the Methods section).As can be seen in Table 13 the overall mean atten-dance of the Adelante students was at the 97% levelwhich is also the target level for all students in theState of Texas. However, when we analyzed thewithin grade attendance levels, we can see thatstudents in grade six were slightly below the stategoal, while students in grade 7 and 8 were at or above

the state goal.These results are corroborated when the Adelante

students' attendance rates are compared to the atten-dance rates of the comparison group. That is, both theseventh and eighth graders performed above theircounterparts in the comparison group, while the sixthgraders' mean attendance was below the rates of thestudents in the comparison group. However, we needto note that, the only statistically significant differencewas between the 99% attendance of the 8th gradersin the Adelante program and the 96% attendance oftheir counterparts in the comparison group.

What was the promotion rate of the Adelantestudents aryl what was the difference of promo-tion rates between the Adelante group and thecomparison group for 1993-94 school ye; ?

Table 14 depicts the promotion rates of theAdelante students and of the comparison group (seeparticipants description in the Methods section). Ascan be seen in Table 14 the overall promotion rate ofthe Adelante students was 94%. When we analyzedthe within grade attendance levels, it is evident that100% of the Adelante students in grade six were

llp1011107.1111111111.

Table 13: Comparison of Students' Mean Attendance bemeen the Adelante students and the Comparison group

Grade Number of Students Mean AttendanceMean

Difference t-Value p-value

Adelante Control Adelante Control

6 23 27 95% 98% -3% -1.88 0.07

7 33 76 97% 96% 1% 0.90 0.37

8 26 56 99% 96% 3% 3.49 0.001

Total 82 159 97% 96% 1% 1.14 0.25


IADELANTECON GANASI: 1993-94

Table 14: Comparison of Students' Promotion Percentages Between the Ade lante and the Comparison Groups

Grade

6

7

8

Total

Number of StudentsAdelante Control

23 25

30 65

24 51

77 141

Percent PromotedAdelante Control

100% 93%

91%

92%

94%

86%

91%

89%

MeanDifference

7%

5%

1°k5%

promoted, 91% of the seventh grades and 92% of theeighth graders were promoted. When compared tothe comparison group, the Ade lante group had onaverage a better promotion rate. In terms of promo-tion, the Adelante sixth graders outperformed theircounterparts in the comparison group by seven per-cent, while the seventh and eight graders in Adelanteprogram outperformed their counterparts by 5% and1% respectively.

How were parents involved in the program andwhat were their perceptions of this involvement?

A major component of the Adelante program wasthe active involvement of parenis in the education oftheir children. Parental involvement was accom-plished in several ways. The primary mechanism forparent involvement were the meetings that wereconducted throughout the school year. Table 15details the subjects and the number of parents that

Table 15: Parent Involvement Meetings

SubjectNumber of

Date Parents1. Schoolwide Open 10/16/93

House: School andAdelante con Ganasprocedures.

2. "Avoiding or Dealing with 12/10/93Drug Problems", Mr. MaxTores

3. "Community Services" in 1/19/94the project'sneighborhood.

4. Schoolwide Open 3/24/94House: report to parentson students' progress

5. "Magnet Schools and 4/28/94Study Skill", libraryapplications.

6. Summer activities, ESL 5/26/94classes, students' dramaperformance.

31

32

23

8

35

Data was not availableSource: Parents Signin Sheets

attended the parent involvement meetings.When considering the number of parents attend-

ing the meetings, we need to mention that severalparents had more than one child in the program. Inaddition, the school principal, during her interviewmentioned that the attendance in the Adelante conGanas parents' meetings was significantly greaterthan all the other parent involvement meetings at thatschool. Therefore, we may conclude that the data inTable 15 indicates that the Adelante parents' meet-ings were well attended except for the fifth meeting.

The degree of parents' satisfaction from the meet-ings was inferred from answers 3A and 3B on theparent survey (see Appendix F). The answers indi-cated high degree of satisfaction from the meetings.Specifically, there was strong agreement with thestatements "The parents' meetings were very helpful"and "I learned many important things in the parentmeetings". When asked "What are the three mostimportant things that you learned at the parents in-volvement meetings?" the parents indicated four mainareas of learning that took place in the meetings:

Parents' responsibility for their child's educa-tion"I learned to be responsible in my daughter'seducation. I learned that I should attend themeeting more often to find out the progress of mydaughter.""To give more attention to my children, to talk withthe teachers and to learn from my daughter."How to help my child to learn"I learned to help my child with his homework.""To be able to help the students understand theirefforts. To help the children with their homeworkor problems that they have. To demand thechildren not to miss school, be punctual, and dotheir works."Report on my child at school"I get the status of my daughters performance inschool.""I learned that my son is a good student."

20 22 HISD RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

jADELANTE-CON GANASI: 1993-94

"To find out how my child is doing in school;especially his grades."Youth and adolescent risk areas"I also like the presentation on drugs, it is amazinghow they affect the person who takes them andthe people around them.""To help so they will not get involved in gangs, and

to say no to drugs, and to be more close to ourchildren."

In order to improve parent involvement, parentswere asked: "Please give us your suggestions on howwe can improve the parent involvement meetings inthe future?" The suggestions were in several areas:

Improve mailings of invitations to parent meet-ings;Increase the number of parent meetings;Get the children involved in parent meetings;Schedule the meetings at more convenient hours

for the parents.

Another source of data for analyzing the parentinvolvement component of the program was theteacher survey. Teachers indicated that in addition toparent involvement meetings, parents were invitedand came to class to participate in instructional activi-ties. Specifically, parents help in tutoring and prepar-ing instructional materials for classes. Parents alsoescorted classes in field trips that were conductedthroughout the year. Parents helped in the prepara-tion for the Cinco de Mayo activities and for the 8thgrade graduation celebrations.

When asked how par nts' involvement can beimproved, the teachers brought up several sugges-tions. Generally, there was an agreement amongteachers that the program staff can increase its effortsto get parents' more involved in the program. Specificideas Mat were mentioned:

Offer technical education to parents;Improve the communication system with parents;Invite parents to help in 'hall monitoring';Initiate the program "Mathematica Para La Familia"

for parents;Invite more parents to tutor program students;Start the parent involvement meetings earliernext year.

What were the students' and parents' perceptionsof and reactions towards the program?

Three sources of data were analyzed in order to


discern the perceptions and reactions of students tothe Adelante program. The direct source was theStudents' Survey (see Appendix B) and the two indi-rect sources were the Staff Survey and the Parents'Survey (See Appendix C and D). We will first addressthe results of the students' survey and then describethe data from the parents and staff surveys.

The students' survey included both open andmultiple-choice questions. The multiple-choice ques-tions included 12 Likert-type scaled questions ( from1-Strongly Disagree, to 5-Strongly Agree). Thesequestions addressed several areas. First, studentsreported a high degree of satisfaction both with schooland with their teachers (see Appendix E, 01:Mean=4.69 and Q9: Mean=4.18). When asked abouttheir interaction with their teachers, students felt thattheir teachers expect them to work hard (see Appen-dix E, Q11: Mean=4.65) and felt that their teachershelp them do their best (see Appendix E, Q3:Mean=4.68).

The students also reported very high degree ofagreement with the statement "I feel that I made a lotof progress in my studies since the beginning of theyear" (see Appendix E, Q6: Mean=4.41). However,students felt that they still need more help from theirteachers to improve their grades (see Appendix E,Q8: Mean=4.00). The relatively low degree of agree-ment with the statement "My teachers think that I amimportant" (see Appendix E, Q7: Mean=3.71) alsosuggest that students need more support from theirteachers.

When asked about the language of instruction,students reported high degree of satisfaction withSpanish instruction (see Appendix E, Q5: Mean=4.41).In accordance with that, students were somewhatreluctant to move to all English instruction (see Ap-pendix E, Q12: Meam=3.63). In relation to the socialnetwork of students, it was found, as expected, thatmost of the students' friends were from their class(see Appendix E, Q10: Mean=4.26).

Students were asked to comment on how toimprove the program. The recommendations forimprovements are reported in the discussion of thelast research question that summarizes all partici-pants recommendations. However, it is worth men-tioning, that about 40 students made some commenton this part of the survey. As the quotations belowsuggest, the respondents expressed great satisfac-tion with the program:

"I like the program arid will continue with it be-cause is a very good program".

21

jADELANTE...coN GANAsl! 1993-94

"I wish this program continues to help other stu-dents like me; even though I'm not going to be inthe program next year I want the program tocontinue to help other student in need"."That I'm very happy, because this is the only waythat we are going to get ahead"."The program has help us a lot and I wish that it will

always continue"."It does not need anything, is complete".The parents survey served as an indirect gauge of

satisfaction of parents and their children with theAdelante program. Answers to questions 3A, 3C, 3E,3F, 3G and 3H (see Appendix F), indicate very highdegree of satisfaction with the program. Specifically,parents believe that their children enjoy going toschool, the teachers had high expectation from thestudents, the teachers helped the children advance intheir studies and that the children learned a great dealin school.

Another indirect data source for students satis-faction with the program came from answers to thequestion on the Staff survey "How do students feelabout this program?" and, 'What do students sayabout the program?". As the following quote suggestthe staff perceived the students to be very satisfiedwith the program:

'They feel very comfortable motivated, interested.They participate in all the projects. Also theyknow the program is the best way to success inthe future. They really love the program"."Students feel well served. Feel good to be partof an ongoing program"."Students are very positive about the program".

The balance between English and Spanish in-struction also came up in staff's answers (see alsostudents answers). It is interesting to note that fromthe teachers point of view, the emphasis on Spanishwas well received by the students:

"At first they thought they should have moreEnglish especially those in the intermediate level.Now, that they understand how they are pro-gressing in English as well as in the academics,most of them are very motivated"."Students do not know the feeling of frustrationproduced by lack of understanding the languagein which instructions are given. Their self-esteemis high, and their input in class is excellent"."The students are happy about the program be-cause it is (in) Spanish. They don't have to sit ina room with not knowing what is expected of them,

when it comes to speaking English. They say ifonly other schools where I come from had thisprogram".

What are the perceived strengths of the Adelantecon Ganas program?

The answer to this question is based on two mainsources of data: staff surveys and interviews, and theschool principal interview. These data elementssuggest that the strengths of the Adelante programcan be categorized under three general areas: theexternal support, the learning context and the social-emotional context.

The External Support. The data indicated thatthere was strong external support for the Adelanteprogram. The external support was based onseveral sources. The first major source of supportwas the Title VII grant money awarded to thedistrict by the office of Bilingual Education andMinority Affairs in the U.S. Department of Educa-tion. The grant money was used to hire compe-tent staff, buy appropriate instructional materials,and conduct staff training. The Houston Indepen-dent School District provided the program withcomputer software, laser disk players materials,lab materials and supplies and staff training.There was a feeling among staff members thatthe district administration and the school staff hada strong motivation to provide any help that wasneeded.The Learning Context. The data suggested thatthe learning context, that was designed by theproject coordinator and implemented by the pro -;.ram teachers, the content resource specialistsand aides, was a major contributor to the initialsuccess of the program. The following quotesfrom the staff's answers exemplify the learningcontext:"good planning", "fine teachers", "the promotionof literacy in Spanish while strengthening Englishskills", "the best thing is to help the students toimprove the English without stopping the processof teaching content areas", "Students keep abreaston core subjects in their native language whilethey are instructed in ESL & English classes".

The Social-Emotional Context. The dataindicated that the program staff led by the projectcoordinator were successful in creating a social emo-tional context that was conducive to effective learning.The follow- ig quotes from the staff's answers exem-


24


plify the learning context:"The students don't feel as isolated and/or alien-ated from the school as a whole."There is a real sense of community within thegroup"."I believe that the major strength is teat all t.:teachers are willing to work and help each child.They can come to school and feel secure in theknowledge that if they have problems they canfind someone to listen to them".

In her remarks during the interview the schoolprincipal summarized some of the strengths of theAdelante program that were detailed abo

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