You say tomato, I say tomate - bilingual controversy at City University of New York's Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College in Bronx, NY

Bilingual Controversy at CUNY-Hostos Revolves Around Final Exam

BRONX, NY - A controversy that erupted this spring over bilingual education at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College, which is part of the City University of New York (CUNY), has languished in the courts and turned into a war of words in the media.

Critics of Hostos, primarily the board of trustees for CUNY. charge that the bilingual college, which was founded in 1968, is failing to produce bilingual students. They further charge that Hostos has replaced the standard CUNY exit exam with a "watered down" version.

Herman Badillo, one of the founders of the college and a trustee for CUNY, said. "First the CUNY Writing Assessment Test (CWAT) was an entrance exam, then an exit exam, and now, it has been dropped altogether."

Administrators and supporters of Hostos strongly disagree with the charges and say that attacks against the nation's only bilingual two-year college are politically motivated, part of the anti-bilingual education movement in the country, and most importantly, based on misinformation.

Hostos English professor Henry Lesnick said that Hostos is fully within its rights to discard CWAT. He also said that research conclusively shows that using multiple factors in language-proficiency assessment is better than a fifty-minute test. The week prior to the trustees' action, the Hostos College Senate endorsed multiple measures of assessment.

"The trustees disregarded the prevailing academic wisdom," he said.

Badillo said that charges that he and the trustees are anti-bilingual are simply false.

"I'm the founder of bilingual education. I was the founder of Hostos. I have been supporting bilingual education since before [student critics of CUNY's board of trustees] were born. No one has been in favor of bilingual education more than I," said Badillo.

He is also concerned that not producing bilingual students "can be used against us" by the enemies of bilingual education. Therefore, he believes that expecting students to write an error-free and coherent 350-word essay is not a lot to ask to show English proficiency.

"Bilingual means knowing two languages, not one," he said.

An "Arbitrary and Capricious" Action

This spring, Badillo first charged that students at Hostos were graduating without learning English. Consequently, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution in May, mandating that all students pass the CWAT as a requirement for graduation.

As a result, two students sued, alleging that the board had overstepped its authority and that, in any case, it was unfair to impose a graduation requirement four days before the end of school.

In July, in Mendez v. Reynolds, the Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled in favor of the students, stating that the action of the trustees was "arbitrary and capricious, and in the present case must be held to be undertaken in bad faith." The court found that the board acted in haste and directed its actions at Hostos, "and not the other community colleges in the CUNY system."

Judge Kenneth Thompson further commented, "The obvious unfairness in changing the degree requirements immediately before graduation is manifest."

However, as a result of New York State law, the decision was stayed, pending an appeal, said Ronald McGuire, the attorney representing the plaintiffs. This means that until the case is heard again, students wanting to graduate will be required to pass the CWAT, he said.

Hostos President Dr. Isaura Santiago said that most press accounts regarding the controversy are wrong and that the trustees made decisions without all the facts. Because they were prohibited from speaking during the earlier part of the litigation, Hostos did not comment on the controversy until very recently. Even now, because the issue is before the courts, Santiago said she is constrained in terms of what she can say.

Santiago did say, however, that certain perceptions need to be cleared up, such as the belief that the CWAT was ever an entrance exam. According to her, it was designed as an assessment and placement test.

Another misconception is that most classes at Hostos are taught in Spanish.

"It's not true. Only 16 to 17 percent of our classes are taught in Spanish," she said, adding that most of those courses are taught at the introductory level.

"The worst misconception," said Santiago, "is that the students don't want to learn English. That's nothing short of absurd. They know English is power and that it empowers them."

Hostos student Dagoberto Lopez said, "The notion that we don't want to learn English is a flat-out lie. We understand that to survive we need to know English. We're not that dumb. We need to know English to be able to serve our communities."

As a result of the court decision, all the students who had not passed the test were able to participate in the graduation ceremonies. However as a result of the stay, the students who did not pass have not received their diplomas.

"Lost in this story is that of 426 of the students in question, 312 had already passed the CWAT," said Santiago. "Of the remainder, only about fifty diplomas are being held."

Alternative Measures of Assessment

To understand this issue requires understanding the facts, said Santiago. Regarding the CWAT, she said that unlike what the press has reported, over the past year, almost all the colleges in the CUNY system - including Hostos - introduced alternative measures of assessment to replace or supplement the CWAT.

According to Santiago, after four years of studies and research, the English Department at Hostos developed a more relevant method of assessing language proficiency - the Hostos Writing Assessment Test (HWAT). The department also proposed using multiple measures of assessment - including speaking, writing, comprehension, grades and a final test in class.

The research Hostos relied on was that of professor Ricardo Otheguy's CUNY-initiated study, The Condition of Latinos in the City University of New York, said Lesnick. The 1990 report concluded that the CWAT "lacks systematic supporting validation research, [and] relies on single measures against the advice of authorities in the area of testing."

Lesnick said that on May 27, the trustees were unaware of the above facts and imposed CWAT as a requirement for graduation. The studies had found the CWAT to be an inappropriate measure, particularly placing "Black and Latino students at a distinct disadvantage," said Lesnick.

So heated has the debate been that Hostos professor Silvio Torres-Saillant and professor Ramona Hernandez of the University of Massachusetts-Boston found it necessary to write to the editor of the New York Daily News, calling into question their reporting style. In stories about the Hostos bilingual controversy, the Daily News reporter used Dominican students to bolster the argument that Hostos is failing in its mission of producing bilingual students, said Torres-Saillant. This gave the impression that the conflict was between Dominican students and Puerto Rican administrators.

"The problems at Hostos are systemic, not inter-ethnic," he said. "We thought if we didn't respond, people would get the idea that Dominicans didn't want bilingual education. Dominicans in New York are the ones who need bilingual education the most.

"The problem with this debate is that the voices that are heard the most are political voices. Certainly it's not educators who are being heard. Educational issues should be discussed with education logic, not political logic. The real issue at CUNY is the downsizing of the university," said Torres-Saillant.

At the moment no court date has been set, but McGuire expects that it could be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Part of the reason for the delay is that the court has lost the documents relevant to the case, he said. Attorneys on both sides are currently trying to reconstruct the documents.

McGuire also said that the board of trustees would like to see Spanish speakers removed from CUNY campuses and placed in off-campus, English-only immersion centers.

"That's segregation, and it's a recipe for failure," said McGuire. "The real issue at Hostos has little to do with tests. The issue is that CUNY is at war with its students."

McGuire also noted that CUNY has more students of color (140,000) than the State University of New York (SUNY) and the California State University (CSU) systems combined.

Then and Now

From 1847 to 1976, CUNY - which was known as the City College of New York - was tuition-free. The introduction of tuition at CUNY coincided with the first year that people of color became the majority in the system, according to McGuire, who charges that since then, CUNY has found ways to cut the educational opportunities for its students.

"This is not about tests or budget cutbacks," he said. "It's about educational genocide. This is the first time the trustees have been appointed by a Republican governor and mayor, and to them, Black and Latino students are expendable. When European immigrants were in the majority, CUNY went out of its way to meet their needs."

To bring about a solution at Hostos, McGuire believes that CUNY has to start with the assumption that its students of color can be leaders. Then it must provide whatever resources are needed to give them a world-class education.

Badillo maintains that all the counter-charges hurled at the trustees are a red herring. He said the trustees are right in insisting that students be able to pass the CWAT.

"All the trustees want is for the students to be bilingual when they graduate - to know English and another language," he said. "If they can't read or write in English, they shouldn't graduate."

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