The Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday unanimously passed a compromise that preserves much of the special training for reading teachers of students learning English -- but the compromise so displeased the bill's Senate sponsor that he promised to let it die without a vote in his chamber.
The ironic net result: If that happens, the present 300 hours of training required of teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages will continue unchanged for now -- as South Florida advocates had hoped.
About one in every seven students in Miami-Dade and Broward public schools is learning English as their second language.
Many ESOL advocates were prepared to accept a compromise proposed by the bill's House sponsor, Jacksonville Republican Jennifer Carroll, to reduce training requirements from 300 to 180 hours. Earlier House and Senate versions of the bill would have cut training to 60 hours -- a proposal Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed last year.
''The ESOL bill that the House passed today is the result of almost two years of hard work and is a good compromise for the students and teachers of our state,'' Rep. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, said Tuesday. ``I am optimistic that the Senate will support this bill.''
But the Senate may never see it.
STILL TOO MUCH
Stephen Wise, a Jacksonville Republican and the bill's Senate sponsor, said 180 hours of training is still too many to qualify teachers for ESOL instruction. He said the House proposal does so little to change the status quo that he doesn't plan to revisit the bill in the Senate, which earlier passed the 60-hour standard.
Instead, he said he's going to let the bill die when the legislative session ends Friday and leave the issue to the state's Board of Education -- which could change the requirement on its own, without legislative direction.
''There's no sense in passing a law if it's not going to do anything,'' Wise said. ``I'm just perplexed that we weren't able to help the teachers. You can get a master's degree with the hours that they're putting in, so I want to be fair to the teachers.''
The changes were prompted because some reading teachers have complained about the 300 hours of training needed to work with students learning English. They have to take it in addition to 15 college credits -- about 300 hours -- they already need to teach reading. But other teachers have said the special lessons are useful.
Language arts teachers -- English teachers -- would still need the full 15 credits. That puzzles advocates of ESOL training who say reading and language-arts teachers' work is very similar and protested the reduction in training.
They were willing to live with the House version of the bill, but if Wise follows through, the existing standard will have survived another legislative session unscathed.
''We have to have informed, educated teachers to teach these students how to learn the English language as fast as possible,'' said Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, president of the Florida chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Her organization helped obtain a 1990 federal consent decree that led to special lessons for teachers of students learning English in Florida.
Last year, Crist was flooded with letters protesting the changes from state, local and national groups advocating for students learning English. A similar campaign was under way this year.
`BACKWARD STEP'
Reducing the number of hours of training for ESOL reading teachers ''would be a backward step in preparing our teachers and prove deleterious to the education of our children,'' wrote Gepsie Metellus, director of the Haitian Neighborhood Center Sant La in Miami.
``Florida has long been a leader in providing services to English language learners. Given our years of experience and the large numbers of immigrant students in our schools, this bill will undercut our progress.''
Miami Herald staff writer Breanne Gilpatrick contributed to this report.
