The Minneapolis School Change plans being released today deserve to be reviewed from the most straightforward perspective: "What will this mean for the children?" As parents of Burroughs students, we've noted that this key question has been drowned out by debates of other issues.

As a bicultural Hispanic citizen (Ferreira) and an Anglo educator (Anderson), we want to draw attention specifically to thinking about Hispanic children in relation to the laudable strategic objective the district has articulated as its No. 1 goal: to ensure all children are prepared for college (PDF).

Why focus attention on Hispanic children?
All children's needs are important to consider, and we believe in the late Sen. Paul Wellstone's caveat: "We all do better when we all do better." But in the recent controversy at our particular school one of the key questions in play is, "Will Burroughs offer a Native Language Literacy (NLL) program for Hispanic children or not?" The children whose fate is most obviously and immediately affected by the answer to this question are children who are Hispanic.

This question of how to best deliver English Language Learning (ELL) services is being asked across the district, and it isn't clear that there is a broad understanding among community members about the different models for meeting various English-language-learning students' needs.

This should be an important topic for all to consider (not just Burroughs families), given that more than 4,000 students, or 16 percent of all students in Minneapolis, speak Spanish as their first language (PDF). Spanish-speaking children make up more than half of all families enrolled in Minneapolis' English-language-learning programs (including bilingual, dual immersion and Native Language Literacy).

School impacts community outcomes
As demonstrated in the recently released McKinsey report "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in American Schools," we as a community, state or nation cannot afford to have any segment of our populations not succeeding in school. Yet, for all its award-winning educational outcomes, Minnesota has a very serious — and costly to all — achievement gap.

The McKinsey report documents the significant achievement gap for many students who are Hispanic and African-American nationwide. Fortunately, the McKinsey report also highlights four critical pieces of data with regard to the academic performance of Hispanic and African-American students: 1) Some states' Hispanic and African-American students are outperforming others. 2) Some districts' Hispanic and African-American students are outperforming others. 3) Some schools' Hispanic and African-American students are outperforming others. 4) Some teachers' Hispanic and African-American students are outperforming others.

This indicates that there are ways that a teacher, school, district and state can make a difference in the educational outcomes of Hispanic and African-American students. We all need to pay attention and be involved in ensuring we are making the best choices for all the children involved. The Strategic Plan for Minneapolis appropriately emphasizes this need – to identify "what works" and support those elements.

In the long run, the degree to which any school program prepares children for post-secondary education ought to be a more important consideration than the short term costs of busing or inconveniences to community school boundaries. For economic, social, cultural and ethical reasons, student academic achievement should be the priority for responsible investments we make today.

What do we know about 'what works' for Hispanic students?

When discussing the needs of children whose families do not speak English as their first language, it is important to understand that NLL and ELL are not the same program, and do not have the same projected outcomes. 

NLL programs seek to ensure a student becomes literate (able to read and write) in his or her first language before emphasizing doing so in a second language. Considerable research has demonstrated that people who learn to read and write in their first language — the language they first speak at home — achieve better academic outcomes across their lifetime than people who can only read and write in their second language (in this case English).

Longitudinal research has demonstrated that for Hispanic students in particular — perhaps because of the significant overlay between the Spanish and English — fluency (reading and writing) in Spanish is highly correlated with academic success in later high school years and with improved vocational outcomes. For all learners, being bilingual has potential benefits — including positive financial implications as they enter the workforce so we should encourage this.

There are numerous known merits for some students of other models of language development (dual language and ELL, for instance) which the scope of this reflection doesn't afford time to fully address. And there are other critical issues, like the negative academic impact of concentrations of poverty and strong cost-benefits of high-quality early childhood programs for children from low-income families,  that need to be addressed by a broader constituent base than the school district alone.

Important to many parents and teachers
Although for different reasons, as parents, we were initially drawn to Burroughs because of the Native Language Literacy program there. Many teachers have indicated this was also important to them — which might explain a recent informal poll which found that 20 percent of faculty there have high-level Spanish language skills and 40 percent of the faculty have at least moderate Spanish language skills. Many Anglo parents, roughly 30 percent, have invested in after-school Spanish lessons for their children at Burroughs to facilitate opportunities for cross-cultural communication. 

The fact that Spanish-language fluency (reading and writing) is an important indicator of likely long-term academic success for Hispanic students should be part of our planning for the important changes ahead. This piece of evidence about "what works" is known — and in improving outcomes for Hispanic and ELL children from other language backgrounds we will do better for us all.

For all our sakes, children from every background and every ability level need our focused attention and our promise: that we will figure out what prepares them to be successful and then will implement it.

Magaly Ferreira is a dentist and active parent volunteer at Burroughs, where she has two children; Siri Anderson taught ELL in Japan and is involved in teacher education for Bemidji State University.