Literacy crises and ESL education.

Hammond, Jennifer

Introduction

The last couple of years have been particularly significant ones for literacy education in Australia, with the release of three major reports on surveys of literacy abilities and the release of a major policy initiative, the Commonwealth Literacy Policy. While the major focus of this article is the nature and consequences of the last-mentioned, it is useful first to look briefly at the reports of literacy surveys, as they contribute directly to the context which shaped the policy and provide, at least to some extent, justification for its nature.

The first of these reports, Survey of Aspects of Literacy (SAL), released in September 1997, provided information about the national survey of literacy abilities of Australian adults, assessed on abilities in prose, document and quantitative literacy on a scale of 1-5. A major finding of the survey was that about 47 per cent of Australian adults were assessed in the lowest two scales, suggesting that a considerable number of people experienced at least some difficulty with literacy in their lives, while only 17 per cent were assessed in the highest two scales. Since about 20 per cent of those surveyed were assessed at Level 1, the survey release was accompanied by some media claims of 20 per cent illiteracy rates in Australia. The more detailed breakdown and discussion of figures revealed other significant data, among them the following findings.

* A strong correlation between low literacy levels and older people, especially those who spoke English as a second language and those of Aboriginal descent (although due to the small sample of Aboriginal informants, the survey report cautioned against generalisations about literacy levels of Aboriginal people).

* Higher overall literacy levels for younger people (with the exception of young people aged 15-19, many of whom, as the survey report pointed out, were still in the process of completing their schooling).

* A high overall correlation between educational attainment and literacy performance.

While the survey results offered little room for complacency as far as the literacy abilities of Australians are concerned, they were comparable with results from other English-speaking nations such as the United States and Canada. From the results it is also possible to conclude that, since younger people with high educational attainment had the highest literacy levels, and older immigrants whose education had occurred primarily in countries other than Australia had the lowest levels of literacy, Australian schools have been generally successful in assisting students' literacy development. They also suggested the need for on-going adult literacy programs. Unfortunately, at the time of the survey release, funding for adult literacy programs had recently been substantially cut.

A second major report -- comprehensive, carefully conducted and having the support of teachers, unions and other educational groups -- was released a week later. Mapping Literacy Achievement (1997) reported the results of the 1996 National School English Literacy Survey, which assessed the literacy achievements of Year 3 and Year 5 students across Australian schools.

Simultaneously, at the insistence of Dr David Kemp, the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, a further report, Literacy Standards in Australia (1997), was released. This report applied a statistical procedure to the data contained in the National School English Literacy Survey in order to establish benchmarks and to determine what proportion of students were performing at levels judged to be adequate. The results, announced in a sensational manner on the television program `Sixty Minutes', were interpreted by the minister as indicating there were major literacy problems in Australian schools and that about one-third of Australian school students could not read or write at an adequate standard.

At the time of the release of this third report, however, the benchmarks were still in the process of being validated, and the report was released without the prior knowledge of the state ministers of education. The nature of the release and the premature use of the benchmarks for interpreting the national school survey results caused considerable controversy in the media and the general community, and among language and literacy educators. There was, and still is, much talk of `literacy crises' in Australian schools; of how `faddish teaching methods' are failing Australian students; of the need for greater rigorous accountability; of the need for more assessment; and the need for more emphasis on literacy standards in schools. (See Comber, Green, Lingard & Luke, 1998; Freebody, 1997; Green, Hodgens & Luke, 1997; Kamler, 1998; Lo Bianco, 1998b; and Freebody & Welch, 1993, for further discussion of these surveys, and more generally of the status of this and other `literacy crises'.)

Whatever the combination of political expediency and genuine educational concern that lay behind the timing and nature of the release of Literacy Standards in Australia, one of the consequences has been that the public and media attention has been firmly directed away from the needs of adult literacy (and funding cuts in that area) and back to school literacy and the crisis that is supposedly located in schools that are `failing our young people'. A related consequence is that the existence of a literacy crisis has now become an accepted `fact'. This `fact', with its emphasis on assessment and accountability, established the context for the subsequent development and release of the Commonwealth Literacy Policy, Literacy for All: The challenge for Australian schools (1998).

The nature and consequences of the Policy is the focus of the remainder is this article. I will first outline what is proposed in the Policy and then turn to what I see as some of the consequences of these proposals, particularly for ESL education and for ESL students. Finally, I will argue that while the Policy has a number of positive features, it also has a number of very serious consequences for ESL education and for ESL students -- consequences that, in my view, challenge the continued existence of ESL education in Australian schools, and raise questions about access and equity in the Australian school education system.

The Literacy for All Policy

The Literacy for All Policy outlines The National Literacy and Numeracy Plan for Australian schools. It only provides details, however, of strategies for achieving the literacy component of the Plan. The numeracy component is still to be released.

In The National Literacy and Numeracy Plan, the Federal Government commits itself to achieving `real improvements in literacy and numeracy skills for Australian children which will better fit them for their futures' and it specifies the following goals:

* that every child leaving primary school should be numerate and be able to read, write and spell at an appropriate level;

* that every child commencing school from 1998 will achieve a minimum acceptable literacy and numeracy standard within four years (p. 9).

The purposes of the Plan which are directed to achieving these goals are to:

* develop strong foundational literacy and numeracy skills for students in the early years as the basis for progress in all future schooling;

* develop, for students throughout the years of schooling, effective literacy and numeracy skills to support successful participation in the post-school years in training, work, or further study;

* develop high levels of proficiency in English literacy and numeracy as a matter of major importance for all Australians' personal, social and cultural development (p. 9).

The Policy details funding strategies to support the literacy component of the Plan and outlines the Plan's contextual framework, which includes, among other features, discussion of early intervention, research and professional development. Finally, it presents a section entitled Aspects of Literacy, which includes discussion of approaches to literacy teaching in early years, teaching for ESL and indigenous students, home and school partnerships, and so on.

Much to applaud in the Policy

On first impressions, the Policy provides much to applaud. As educators, we have long been aware of the importance of literacy education and of the role of English literacy in providing access for students to a range of life choices. We must therefore welcome the government's commitment to literacy and numeracy. We must also welcome the additional funding that accompanies such commitment. We all want students to be literate by the time they leave primary school and we would all support the following argument.

Literacy teaching and learning must be the first priority in the management of the whole curriculum, with specific provision of time fully committed to literacy teaching and the integration of literacy learning opportunities in all curriculum areas.

(p. 8)

In addition, most educators would endorse the definition of literacy adopted in the Policy. Drawn from Australia's Language: The Australian Language and Literacy Policy (DEET: 1991), it has been widely used and accepted in Australia in recent years. The definition states:

Effective literacy is intrinsically purposeful, flexible and dynamic and involves the integration of speaking, listening and critical thinking with reading and writing.

(p. 7)

We are also likely to support the Policy's recognition of the need for a range of approaches to teaching literacy in order to address:

* the differences in the student populations across States, Territories and systems;

* the diverse nature of schools and their communities;

* the differing needs of individual students; and

* the range of teaching and learning styles that are necessary to serve a heterogenous community (p. 10).

The commitment to the professional development of teachers (p. 26); the recognition of the need for research (p. 28); and the importance attached to the particular needs of ESL and Indigenous students, home school partnerships, and literacy and technology (p. 33-42), are all laudable aspects of the Policy.

Comprehensive in scope, clearly written and well organised, the document draws on relevant research findings from Australian and international authors to substantiate the arguments it presents regarding the nature of literacy and the teaching and learning of literacy. So what is there to be concerned about?

The gap between goals, purposes and descriptions of literacy and proposed strategies

The overriding problem, in my opinion, is the gap between the Policy's goals, purposes and descriptions of literacy on the one hand, and the actual elements or strategies proposed for achieving these on the other. These strategies are:

* assessment of all students by their teachers as early as possible in the first years of schooling;

* early intervention strategies for those students identified as having difficulty;

* the development of agreed benchmarks for years 3, 5, 7 and 9, against which all children's achievement in these years can be measured;

* the measurement of students' progress against these benchmarks using rigorous state-based assessment procedures, with all Year 3 students being assessed against the benchmarks from 1998 onwards, and against the Year 5 benchmark as soon as possible;

* progress towards national reporting on student achievement against the benchmarks, with reporting commencing in 1999 within the framework of the annual National Report of Schooling in Australia; and

* professional development for teachers to support key elements of the Plan (p. 10).

The first and most obvious point to be made here is that all but two of the elements refer specifically to assessment. Students are to be assessed as early as possible; benchmarks are to be developed; students' progress is to be measured against these benchmarks; and we are to work towards national reporting. The final element refers to the need for professional development support for teachers. Since these key elements primarily address assessment, we must assume that this professional development will also focus on assessment. So we are left with only one element that specifically refers to the teaching of literacy; namely, the need for early intervention for students with literacy difficulties. Thus it could be argued that the only focus on the teaching of literacy is for students who have been identified as `failing' and in need of remediation.

Secondly, it is difficult to see how the Policy can achieve its goals and purposes of improving overall literacy standards for all students given such an emphasis on assessment. The issue here is not that assessment is, in itself, a bad thing. Indeed, regular, on-going and systematic assessment of students' literacy abilities provides essential information for teachers, educators, administrators and policy writers. The problem is that the Policy places such extensive emphasis on assessment that there is little room for teaching. Without ongoing support for effective teaching programs in literacy, literacy abilities are unlikely to be assisted, no matter how many times students are assessed and measured.

These same emphases are evident in the proposals for professional development and research. In regard to professional development, the Policy proposes funding support for:

* screening strategies to identify those students at risk;

* early intervention to address the needs of students at risk; and

* assessment of student progress against national benchmarks (p. 27).

In regard to research, funding is proposed for projects that support the Plan, specifically:

* the review and evaluation of literacy teaching programs;

* specific learning disabilities and literacy development;

* the development of an Indigenous literacy and numeracy strategy;

* the development and usage of effective literacy screening and assessment techniques in the first years of schooling;

* the development of effective student outcomes, measurement and improved reporting techniques;

* the development and implementation of effective literacy volunteer and parent programmes (p. 28).

Thus, despite the rhetoric of the Policy, the actual proposals for action focus almost exclusively on assessment and remedial literacy.

A third point to emerge relates to the definition of literacy used in the Policy (p. 7), which describes literacy as `purposeful, dynamic and flexible' and `involving critical thinking'. While there will always be debates over the adequacy of this and other definitions, this one has, as indicated earlier, received broad acceptance in recent years from Australian language and literacy educators. Were this definition to be implemented we would expect to see strategies that support on-going and comprehensive literacy development, explicit attention paid to the relationship between critical thinking and critical reading of texts, emphasis on ways of producing effective texts for specific purposes, and so on w all areas that have been extensively addressed in recent Australian work in literacy education (e.g., Anstey & Bull, 1996; Hasan & Williams, 1996; Muspratt, Luke & Freebody, 1997). However, once again, I would argue that there is a substantial gap between what is stated in the Policy and the elements that are proposed for its implementation.

As indicated above, the only element in the Policy that refers specifically to the teaching of literacy is `early intervention' with students identified as having difficulty. This emphasis on `remedial literacy' implies a rather narrow and restrictive model of literacy. Such a model views students' developing literacy abilities in terms of what they are unable to do, that is, their failures and deficiencies. It is ironic that at a time when there is substantial international recognition of the quality of much Australian work in theory and practice of literacy education, the Commonwealth Literacy Policy appears to be promoting an essentially reductive model of literacy. This kind of `deficit' model has been rejected on numerous previous occasions on the grounds of its theoretical and practical inadequacies. It is even more ironic that the Policy itself recognises this and explicitly rejects a `deficit' view of literacy (p. 17) while, at the same time, it appears to endorse such a model through its proposed strategies.

Despite the contradictions between what the Policy states and the actions that it proposes, it could be argued that its goals are positive, and they provide teachers with broad support to continue their work on the development and implementation of literacy programs designed to address the needs of their diverse groups of students. It could also be argued that the heightened awareness of the importance of literacy within the community as a whole is a positive outcome both of the Policy and of the debate about literacy crises that preceded its release. Certainly I believe that the Policy is likely to result in assistance for some students that would not otherwise have been available.

In the following sections, however, I want to explore more closely some of the implications that I believe are inherent within this Policy for ESL students and for ESL education.

The positioning of ESL education in the Policy

The National Literacy Plan specifically acknowledges diversity in the Australian school population and it refers to the needs of ESL students. In it conclusion, the Policy makes the following claim.

The Plan has a clearly defined equity dimension, in that it sets out a national, strategic approach to meeting the needs of all children. The Plan recognises that diversity of experience, needs and interests which children bring with them when they enter school, and encourages a broad range of teaching approaches attuned to this diversity. Particular groups of children, including Indigenous children, children whose first language is not English, and children from some socioeconomic groups, will all have particular needs, to which schools and the schooling system must be responsive.

(p. 43)

So where exactly is this equity dimension to be found? If the Policy took seriously the notion of diversity, it should provide strategies designed to assist teachers meet the diverse needs of `particular groups of children', including ESL children. The extent to which the needs of ESL students are recognised at all locates them among those who are identified as having `difficulties' with literacy -- that is, as students who are failing, and who require early intervention. While it could be argued that this is appropriate, since one of the findings of the 1996 National School English Literacy Survey was that ESL students (not surprisingly) were among those identified with low levels of literacy, it does not go far enough.

Let's consider the profile of ESL students who migrate to Australia and begin attending primary school in this country at about the age of ten or eleven. These students are likely to be orally fluent and developing in literacy in their mother tongue, and may well be fluent in another language as well. When they start school here they make substantial progress in English language development, but require specialised support (not remediation) for a number of years, especially in the areas of academic literacy (e.g., Cummins & Swain, 1986; Cummins, 1996; Gibbons, 1991).

Even after a year or more at an Australian school, these students may well perform poorly against benchmarks on national assessment procedures that have been designed for students whose mother tongue is English. However, it would be inaccurate to suggest that these students were `failing' in literacy development. It would also be inaccurate to portray the needs of such students as `problems'. (See Davison, 1998, and Lo Bianco, 1998, for further discussions of this issue.) The strategies proposed in the Policy provide little opportunity to do other than locate such students in deficit terms. They also provide little opportunity to recognise the talents and the linguistic and cultural knowledge that such students bring with them to school.

Some may argue that the `deficit' model of ESL education that is implicit in the Policy is of little significance, and that what really matters is that teachers recognise the needs of such students and continue to provide programs that genuinely address these needs. However, there are other features of the Policy that make the ongoing provision of such programs increasingly unlikely.

Redefining the nature of ESL education

An important feature of the Policy is that it contains an implicit redefinition of ESL education and of the needs of ESL students; however, the way in which this occurs is, I believe, quite subtle. To follow the process of redefinition one needs to look at how `educational disadvantage' is described.

For some years in Australia, schools with significant numbers of students classified as `educationally disadvantaged' have had access to additional funding. This funding has enabled regions and schools to undertake research and to develop programs designed to meet the specific needs of such students. `Educational disadvantage' has been defined in terms of social factors that are likely to affect access to mainstream school programs. These factors include Aboriginal background, non-English-speaking background, remote rural location, and poverty.

There appears to be a slippage in the Policy in the way in which `educational disadvantage' is defined; in fact, one could argue that the Policy actually contradicts itself on this issue. The slippage can be traced back to the discussion paper (The Allocation of Literacy Programme Grants to School Funds from 1998) that preceded the release of the Policy. In that paper `educational disadvantage' is defined as follows.

For the purposes of this paper `educational disadvantage' whether it arises principally from economic or social disadvantage or from a complex interplay of these and other factors is taken to mean less than fair access to education and less than equal shares in its outcomes.

(emphasis added, p. 1)

However, later in the same paper one finds:

In this context for the purposes of funding under the Literacy Programme, educationally disadvantaged students will be defined as students with poor literacy and numeracy outcomes.

(emphasis added, p. 3)

The Policy contains the same slippage. On p. 6, in the introduction, it is stated:

The Commonwealth will continue to provide targeted funding for educationally disadvantaged students by supplementing the funding of Australian schools to achieve specific national objectives. The major factors which are usually seen as placing educational outcomes at risk include socioeconomic disadvantage, poverty, low parental expectation, disability, language background other than English, family or personal difficulties, geographic isolation, Indigenous background and gender.

But on p. 11, in the discussion of funding strategies to support the National Plan, one finds:

It is expected that funds (of the Commonwealth Literacy Programme) will be directed particularly to schools with a high proportion of students educationally disadvantaged in terms of their literacy and numeracy outcomes (emphasis added).

In both the discussion paper and the Policy document there is the same substantial shift in how educational disadvantage is defined. The earlier definitions in both documents locate the source of `educational disadvantage' in a range of social, cultural, political, and economic factors that operate in society (that is, in factors that are beyond the control of individual students or their teachers). The latter definitions, however, with their emphasis on literacy and numeracy outcomes, shift the location of `educational disadvantage' to something that can be measured in schools and which relates to performance by individual students.

With these shifts in definition, the concept of `educational disadvantage' is no longer located in broad social factors but rather in the schools and in the teachers who failed to teach literacy skills, or, ultimately, in the students who failed to achieve acceptable `standards' in assessment outcomes. The shift in definition thus has important consequences. Teachers and schools, by definition, can now be held responsible for educational disadvantage. Failure on the part of students to meet national benchmarks can now be `blamed' on schools and on teachers who have failed to do their job, or on individual students who have failed to meet required standards, despite the benefits of the Commonwealth Literacy Programme.

There is a further consequence of this redefinition of educational disadvantage. The logic of such an argument goes something like this. If educational disadvantage is redefined as `poor literacy and numeracy outcomes' then it becomes possible to address the diverse needs of `disadvantaged' students, including ESL students, by programs which are designed simply to improve outcomes. That is, it becomes possible to reduce the complex and varied needs of diverse groups of students to a single problem (that of literacy outcomes and failure to score adequately against benchmarks set against national assessment procedures). One can argue then that it becomes possible to meet the needs of these diverse students with `remedial literacy programs'.

And in fact this is what is argued in the Policy. The needs of diverse groups Of students, including ESL students, are redefined and subsumed under the general heading of literacy needs. This `broadbanding' of ESL, in my view, is an overly simplistic response to the complex and diverse needs of different groups of students.

Many would argue that definitions of ESL are not particularly important because ESL teachers will carry on regardless, and they are aware of the complex and specific needs of the students they teach. However, once again there are features in the policy that work against this.

`Mainstreaming' of ESL funding

A second and related feature of the Policy is its proposed allocation of funding. With a redefinition of needs of ESL student, it becomes possible to reallocate funding for ESL programs. That is, once the needs of ESL and other `educationally disadvantaged' students have been redefined as literacy needs (specifically as outcomes on assessment procedures) then funding which was previously allocated specifically for ESL provision can be `mainstreamed' or `broadbanded' under the heading of the Commonwealth Literacy Programme.

Indeed this is what has happened. Funding that was previously specifically allocated both to the disadvantaged Schools Program and the ESL General Support Program has been subsumed under the Commonwealth Literacy Programme with the addition of fifty million dollars (see Policy, p. 11). This reallocation of funding enables the government to claim that some hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to ensure that all students reach acceptable literacy standards. While on paper this appears to be the case, much of this money is simply a reallocation of funds from previously existing programs.

In addition, from 1998, the Policy requires education authorities to submit detailed plans outlining how funds provided by the Commonwealth will be used to achieve measurable improvements in literacy and numeracy outcomes (p. 12). That is, access to funding from 1998 will be tied to measurable outcomes. Interestingly, the discussion paper (The Allocation of Literacy Programme Grants to School Funds from 1998) released prior to the Policy identifies a number of very real problems associated with such a move. These are:

* the dilemma of funding high or low performance (7.11);

* the difficulty of taking account of differences in school education provision between states, including such factors as isolation, socioeconomic background, non-English-speaking background, and the impact of these on the capacity of states to achieve appropriate levels of performance (7.1.2);

* problems associated with lack of separation between those who collect outcomes data and those who may benefit from the resulting allocations (7.1.3); and

* the difficulty of providing some stability of funding levels given the importance of continuity of programs (7.1.4).

While the discussion paper raises these issues, it offers no suggestions for addressing them and they are ignored in the Policy itself.

Following the release of the Policy, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was commissioned to produce a paper outlining options in relation to outcomes-based funding. At the time of my writing this article (January, 1999) for the AJLL, it appears that a number of possible models are still under consideration. For example, it is still unclear whether programs which include students who score poorly against specified outcomes and benchmarks will receive extra funding (a compensatory model), or whether funding will be withdrawn from such programs and reallocated to those where students have demonstrated improvement against outcomes and benchmarks (an incentive model), or whether there will be a different model altogether.

Whichever model of outcomes-based funding is introduced, ESL students are likely to be disadvantaged. They will be assessed against national assessment procedures that take no account of nature of second language and literacy development. (See Davison, 1998; Derewianka & Hammond, 1991; Lo Bianco, 1998a, 1998c, for discussion of the nature of ESL development, and of the problems associated with assessing ESL students against procedures designed for national assessment of English.) Consequently, many are likely to score poorly. If the CommonWealth introduces a compensatory model, a number of ESL students presumably will be eligible for remedial literacy programs. However, as I argued earlier, such programs are unlikely to meet their specific needs. If an incentive model of funding is introduced it would appear that many ESL students will not even receive remedial literacy assistance.

There is a further `Catch 22' situation. The focus of the Commonwealth Literacy Programme is on assessment and remediation, particularly in the early years of schooling. For older ESL students and particularly for those who have not been identified as requiring `intervention', there is no provision for support at all. Thus ESL students who reach the specified outcomes and benchmarks by means of being academically gifted or by any other means are offered no special support in their English language development. With an ESL General Support Programno longer in existence, ESL students are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

The National Literacy Plan, however, has an added advantage for the Commonwealth Government in that it does not yet appear as if funding for ESL and other programs has been cut. The nature of federal and state relations in education at this point means that there is still some possibility that state organisations and individual schools can direct funding specifically to ESL programs, since the Commonwealth Government seems to have neatly shifted responsibility for equity (including ESL provision) onto the states. But while individual states may have an on-going commitment to equity, once outcomes-based funding is put into place, it will become increasingly difficult to allocate funding in ways other than those specified by the Commonwealth Government.

There is a further issue here. The Commonwealth Literacy Programme has a lifespan of only three years, and beyond that time there is no guarantee of any further funding. Because ESL funding (that was recurrent) has been subsumed under the umbrella of the Commonwealth Literacy Programme, there is also no further guarantee of ESL provision beyond the three-year lifespan of the Literacy Programme. Yet by the time it becomes obvious that funding has been cut, it is the state departments of education that will wear the blame. The Commonwealth Government has neatly avoided the kind of resistance that greeted the Keating Government in 1986 when it tried to cut funding for ESL education (Michell, 1999). Overall, at this point in our educational history, the picture for ESL education is not a positive one.

Conclusion

I have painted a somewhat gloomy picture of the nature and consequences of what could potentially have been a very positive educational development -- the systematic and deliberate targeting of literacy needs of Australian students. While there is much in the rhetoric of the Literacy for All Policy for us to celebrate, there remains a real gap between this rhetoric and the strategies that are proposed to achieve the Policy goals.

I have suggested that through its emphasis on assessment and accountability, the Policy proposes an overly simplistic response to diversity. I have also argued that the strategies it proposes in fact work to eliminate programs that would be able to address the diverse and very real literacy needs of ESL and other minority students. In regard to ESL students, I have suggested that this process works through the redefinition of `educational disadvantage' and of the needs of ESL students, in combination with the `mainstreaming' of ESL education under the umbrella of literacy. In my view, the Policy therefore constitutes a very serious threat to the continued provision of ESL education in Australia.

For those of us concerned with ESL students, it would appear that this Policy places us once again in the position where we need to articulate the nature of ESL education, and the relationship between the needs of ESL students and those of students whose mother tongue is English. As has been previously argued (e.g., Davison, 1998; Derewianka & Hammond, 1991; Hammond, Wickert, Burns, Joyce & Miller, 1992: Lo Bianco, 1998a), this relationship is a complex one which has important similarities, but equally important differences. These differences cannot be reduced to simplistic notions of literacy failure and remedial literacy, as the strategies within the Commonwealth Literacy Programme require us to do, without jeopardising notions of access and equity that have long been held central to educational goals in Australian schools.

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Jennifer Hammond is a senior lecturer in language and literacy education at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is also director of the Centre for Language and Literacy at UTS. Her research interests lie primarily in the field of literacy education of mother tongue and second language learners, and she has published extensively in this field.

Address: Centre for Language and Literacy, Faculty of Education, University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007. Email: Jenny.Hammond@uts.edu.au