TOM HORNE

Arizona schools superintendent Tom Horne had a startling annoucement today: some school districts adopted the state’s new English immersion program for Spanish-speaking students a year early, and these districts already have made dramatic improvements in bringing those students into the mainstream.

A news release from Horne’s office today says these school districts have at least doubled their pace for removing students from the status of English language learners. That includes the Florence Unified School District, which went from a  “reclassification” rate of 15 percent to 38 percent this fall.

Horne has emerged as the leading champion of immersing ELL students in four hours of language instruction each school day until they can read and write as well as their classmates who learned English as their first language. Horne has clashed publicly with school superintendents around the state, including Mesa’s Debra Duvall, who claim the state has pushed an untested program too fast with too little funding.

Unless the results reported today are a short-term aberration, this is great news for taxpayers as the state spends a signficiant amount of extra money to help ELL students — but the state is still trapped in a federal lawsuit that is seeking even more funding. Horne soon might be able to crow about finally implementing the intent of state voters who approved an English-immersion initiative in 2000 as a better way to address the problem.

Related story:
ELL problems go beyond funding

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