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Administration of Two-Way Bilingual Elementary Schools: Building on Strength Rosa Castro Feinberg Florida International University Abstract Does the administration of two-way bilingual elementary schools differ from the administration of other schools? This article summarizes the opinions on this question offered by present and past administrators of two-way bilingual schools in Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS). It also explores the administrative activities and skills they identify as essential and the characteristics and historical context of their arena for action. This account contributes to an understanding of leadership functions that foster program longevity.
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The purpose of this article is to identify management activities and skills considered crucial for the administration of two-way bilingual elementary schools by Miami-Dade Public Schools (M-DCPS) administrators who directed the implementation of the model, and to describe the historical context which gives meaning to their actions. The basic question addressed is whether the administration of these schools is different from the administration of other schools. This question is considered in relationship to factors that foster program longevity.
The question arises because review of the literature in management (Katz, 1974; Hofstede, 1980; Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, & Trompenaars, 1998), educational administration (Hallinger & Leithwood, 1996), change and educational reform (Sarason, 1982, 1996; Steinberg, 1996), and bilingual school administration (Schwabsky, 1998; Center For Applied Linguistics, 1999; Met and Lorenz 1997; Valdés, 1997) gives weight to the notion that there is a difference. Given the linguistic diversity of two-way bilingual schools, and therefore the likely diversity in national origin and culture, are school managers (the principals) adequately prepared for the challenges they will face? Are special skills needed to manage the interaction of the school community's diversity in value systems and in communication styles in ways that effectively interface with curriculum development, school reform, or team building functions?
Education is not the only arena where cultures meet. The world of business is increasingly conceptualized in global or international terms. It was precisely to help managers understand the influence of culture on business processes that International Management courses and programs were instituted. Generic management skills were not considered sufficient. Is an analogous subspecialty of educational administration needed for principals of two-way bilingual schools?
The importance of the question is based on the key role of the school principal in implementation of the two-way model, and its rapid adoption by over 200 schools across the country (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1999). As these programs are increasingly in vogue, their success or failure will have an impact not only on their students, but also on public opinion regarding bilingual education. The conclusions drawn from this study may contribute to the development of responses to anticipated shortages of school administrators (University Of Oregon College Of Education, summer-fall 1998), and to revision of educational leadership programs (Murphy & Hallinger, 1992; González & Darling-Hammond, 1997). They may also be of help to school district administrators as they draw up vacancy selection criteria and statements of required qualifications for leadership positions in two-way schools.
Most importantly, the two-way bilingual school model has endured for 36 years in M-DCPS. During these years, nine appointments of district superintendents took place (each of whom directed a reorganization process), several board members demonstrated open hostility toward bilingual programs, the English-Only movement was spawned when the Dade County Commission adopted its 1980 anti-bilingualism ordinance (now repealed), and Florida voters approved in 1988 an English-Only amendment to the state constitution. Nevertheless, two-way schools continued in operation. Description of the actions taken by the principals of these schools, and of the context in which they acted, may shed light on ways to promote organizational survival and provide examples worth considering in other parts of the country.
Indicators that Special
Skills are Needed 
Indicators that generic school administration training is not sufficient to prepare principals of two-way schools are present in management, change and educational reform, and bilingual school administration literature.
Management
Katz (1974) identified three essential areas of managerial skills: technical, human relations, and conceptual. In direct contrast to the often espoused notion that management skills are generic, his work recognized that managers frequently perform functions which are not purely managerial and that require technical or human relations competence. Two-way bilingual schools serve linguistically diverse students and communities, with at least 50% of the classroom teachers proficient in the target language, which is often the teachers' mother tongue. Linguistic and cultural areas of technical competence needed by principals of two-way and immersion schools were identified by Schwabsky (1998) and linked to cross-cultural communication and human relations functions.
Hofstede (1980) reported four dimensions along which dominant patterns of a national culture can be ordered: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity-femininity, leading to cultural differences in work-related values. In subsequent work, he discusses cultural differences based on generation, social class, job title, and region (1991), while Trompenaars, et al. (1998) considers the influence on management of intra national as well as international variations. These theories contrast with those of North American organizational scholars, such as David McClelland and Frederick Herzberg, whose works are often noted in educational administration courses. Their reasoning, however, may not be applicable across cultural boundaries, or to two-way bilingual school settings. A link between the international management focus, much of it aimed at expatriate managers, and educational administration is established by Hallinger and Leithwood (1996), who discuss the impact that different cultural values could exert on the thinking and behavior of leaders and other organizational participants.
In Florida and in most other states, working toward educational reform is an important part of the work of school administrators. According to the Education Council of the States (1998), more than 3,000 schools across the nation are using approaches that focus on reorganizing and revitalizing the entire school from the ground up. Sarason (1982, 1996) recommends means for overcoming potential barriers to school change which provide a rationale for school-based management, a primary vehicle for governance reform. The Miami-Dade school system was among the first in the country to establish school-based decision making councils as structures for site specific reform and curriculum planning. Since school-based reform efforts require team work, communication, and collaboration, and since curriculum development fundamentally deals with culture based values, the principals of two-way schools may be called on to utilize skills in the management of cross-cultural conflicts they had no opportunity to acquire.
As Steinberg (1996) states, changes outside of school strongly influence the teaching-learning process inside the school. The principal, therefore, depends on grass roots, parental, civic, government, and private sector partners to lend credibility and advocate in support of reform efforts. In a two-way bilingual school, and in highly diverse communities such as Miami-Dade's, the principal will need a high degree of cross-cultural communication expertise to succeed in marshalling that assistance.
Administration of Two-way Bilingual
Schools
The scant literature related to the administration of two-way bilingual schools lends support to the theories summarized above. A dissertation study directly on point (Schwabsky, 1998) described in detail the role of principals as problem solvers of non-routine problems in bilingual immersion schools. These problems involved intercultural communication, interlingual communication, curriculum development, and equity of teachers' workloads. According to that study, the underlying cause of many of these problems were misunderstandings and controversies that arose from the interplay within and between competing world cultures and the school culture.
The Directory of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Programs
in the U.S (Center For Applied Linguistics, 1999) provided valuable
building blocks for an exploration of administrative facets of program
implementation. Under the section headings of "Advice to Start
Up Programs" and "Most Important Features," the following
comments were included for Miami-Dade's two-way schools: 
In a review of program initiation and maintenance factors affecting immersion programs (Met & Lorenz, 1997), five administrative topics are discussed: providing instructional leadership, selecting and training staff, setting the number of participating students, planning for program continuation, and choosing a physical facility. The first two of the immersion school programmatic issues they identify fall within a principal's scope of decision making, and coincide with the areas highlighted by the Center for Applied Linguistics (1999).
Valdés (1997) raised questions regarding the priority according to the needs of heritage language students in two-way programs. Would the needs of limited English proficient (LEP) students in such programs be ignored as the institution catered to majority group students? Would the home language development of Spanish language origin students suffer as the teachers try to keep the level of instruction within reach of the second language learners of that language? Given societal pressures leading to language shift, and the economic and political power of the English language origin community, these are important questions to consider.
The methodological approach for this descriptive study is a qualitative analysis based on semi-structured interviews. Interview topics were drawn from the literature summarized in the preceding pages. Generalizations based on this study may be applicable only to schools and communities with characteristics similar to those of M-DCPS. These characteristics are described in the following profiles of the participants, the M-DCPS school district, and the district's bilingual program in its historical context.
Participants
With the exception of three central office administrators, all Miami interview participants are present or prior principals of two-way bilingual schools. As a crosscheck on some unexpected findings, the group of participants in the interview process was expanded to include two additional administrators from the Washington, DC area. The teaching and leadership experience of the 14 interview participants is indicated below.
Administration of Two-Way Bilingual Elementary Schools
(Continued)
All participants are bilingual to some extent, most at professional levels of competence. Hispanics constitute 70% of the group interviewed; 30% are non-Hispanic Whites.
The District: M-DCPS
Miami-Dade County, with more than 2,000 square miles and more than two million residents, is larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. The school system is the fourth largest in the nation, and the fourth largest business operation in Florida, with more than 345,000 students enrolled in 318 schools and centers (M-DCPS, 1999b). Dade's school buildings themselves are worthy of mention; José Martí Middle School and Toussaint Louverture and Rubén Darío Elementary Schools were named to reflect the history and culture of Dade's residents from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua; Eneida Hartner Elementary was named in honor of the district's first Puerto Rican Principal (who had previously been an administrator of the Title VII funded Spanish Curriculum Development Center). The district employs slightly more White non-Hispanic administrators (39%) than Black non-Hispanic (32%) or Hispanic (31%), while 39% of the Instructional Staff is White non-Hispanic, 26% is Black non-Hispanic, and 31% is Hispanic. Countries contributing more than one percent of the Hispanic LEP student population include Cuba, Nicaragua, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Honduras.
Special Developmental Bilingual/Biliterate Programs
Three programs are classified as "Special Developmental Bilingual/Biliterate Programs" by M-DCPS: 1) International Studies (IS) Magnet Programs, 2) Elementary Bilingual School Organization (BISO), and 3) Extended Foreign Language (EFL) Programs (M-DCPS, 1999a). The latter two programs (BISO and EFL) are alternative two-way bilingual education models.
IS Magnet Programs
The International Studies Magnet programs are offered in grades K through 12 in Spanish, French, and German, formalized through bi-national agreements, and initially designed so that each program met the educational requirements of the participating countries and of the state of Florida. Foreign nationals frequently teach courses in these programs, which emphasize study of various content areas through the second language. Students at the high school level may qualify to complete their secondary education in an International Baccalaureate program, or may continue in the IS program (Conde Morencia, 1998).
Two-way bilingual education
Several types of bilingual education options are provided by M-DCPS, including classes in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Spanish as a Second Language (Spanish. SL), Spanish for Spanish Speakers (Spanish-S) and Curriculum Content in the Home Language (CCHL) (M-DCPS, 1999a). Elementary schools which offer these four courses along with the district's regular instructional program in English, and provide for the introduction of basic concepts and skills in the students' home language and reinforcement in the second language, are known as schools with a Bilingual School Organization (BISO). In BISO schools (the district's two-way bilingual schools), a major objective is to make Spanish a second language for the English-proficient children. All students in the school are program participants. The BISO delivery system and objectives, when limited to two classes per grade, constitutes the district's Extended Foreign Language (EFL) program, an alternative model for two-way bilingual education initiated in M-DCPS in 1993. Both BISO schools and EFL programs provide instruction in and through the Spanish language for 40% of the school day.
There are currently five two-way bilingual schools in the Miami-Dade district: Coral Way (where the model was established), Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (the newest school of the group), Caribbean, Southside, and Springview Elementary Schools. Additional information about the district and two of these schools follows.
Thumbnail Profiles of M-DCPS, Coral Way, and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Elementary Schools
Beebe and Mackey (1990) relate the events of the first 15 years of bilingual schooling in the Miami area, beginning with the arrival of Cuban refugees to Dade County in the early 1960s. Their account conveys a sense of the massive numbers of children affected by the exodus (with over 18,000 Cuban refugee students enrolled in Dade's schools by September, 1962) and the continuing nature of the immigration and school enrollment pattern (since the 60s, some 3,000 immigrant and refugee children a year enroll in the public schools in M-DCPS). The district provided programs to teach the students English and began development of curriculum for Spanish Language Arts. Many experienced teachers from Cuba were recruited for these programs, starting the Miami phase of their careers with the title of Cuban Aide. They became eligible for special teacher certification provisions as participants in the University of Miami Cuban Teacher Retraining Project. With the help of a Ford Foundation grant, plans, materials, and staff training activities were developed for a bi-ethnic, bilingual school, which began operation at Coral Way Elementary in 1963. By 1975, there were eight two-way bilingual elementary schools throughout the county and 18 secondary schools with bilingual curriculum (Beebe & Mackey, 1990, pp. 109-110).
A decade later, however, only four of these schools were still in operation and district officials questioned their relevance (Aldrich, 1984). As Dade's Hispanic community grew, and as it became increasingly evident that Spanish-English bilingualism was an economic asset, so did antagonism to Hispanics and to the Spanish language. The ethnic composition of the M-DCPS school board is a good illustration. The board's first Hispanic member, Alfredo Duran, appointed to fill a vacancy by Governor Reubin Askew in 1973, was ousted from office by the voters in the 1974 countywide election. There was no Hispanic on the board for the rest of the decade. In 1980, Governor Bob Graham also appointed an Hispanic, Paul Cejas. He was elected in 1981 (becoming the first Hispanic man to win countywide office in Dade County) and re-elected in 1984. He served as the sole Hispanic on the seven-member board until 1986, when Governor Graham appointed the board's next Hispanic member, who was elected in 1988, re-elected in 1992, and retired in 1996. After her mentor's retirement in 1988, she in turn served as the board's only Hispanic member for the remainder of her 10 years in office (and in 1988, became the first Hispanic woman to win countywide election). It was not until 1996, the first board member election to be held in single member districts rather than county wide, that an expanded nine-member board came to include four Hispanics in an area where well over 50% of the population of both the schools and the county population was Hispanic (Castro Feinberg, 1994).
Almost every year, during the period from 1978 to 1988, there was serious consideration of plans to greatly reduce or eliminate parts of the district's bilingual education program and budget. Typically, these plans were preceded by politically motivated demands for yet another evaluation of the program's components (Rothfarb, Ariza, & Urrutia, 1987), or by the convening of yet another task force whose recommendations were intended to legitimatize the desired hatchet job. Every year, the danger was averted through the efforts of ad hoc coalitions of community based organizations such as the Spanish American League Against Discrimination (SALAD) and professional organizations such as the Bilingual Association of Florida (the NABE Affiliate in Florida), the Florida Foreign Language Association (FFLA), and Florida Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (Florida TESOL).
The recurring danger was so predictable that a new community-based organization was formed by the teachers in the bilingual program, primarily to better organize resistance efforts. It was called the American Hispanic Educators Association of Dade (AHEAD). Several of the teachers who later became principals of the two-way schools were founders of the organization, which for several years included over a thousand members. In 1982, the total elimination of programs in Spanish for Spanish speakers (Home Language Arts) was considered by the school board. Bilingual program supporters responded to this affront. Although they had no previous experience with political advocacy, they did have the guidance of a SALAD Board Member, who advised them to fill the school board meeting room with vocal supporters on the days the bilingual budget item was on the agenda, and to swamp the board office with calls and letters. They succeeded so well, using quickly organized telephone trees, that they earned the first of a series of well-publicized victories in support of bilingual programs. The group succeeded in gaining visibility for its causes through the mass media and expertise in marshalling the help of Spanish language radio stations to help bring issues to the grass roots level.
Members of AHEAD also became very effective in supporting those candidates for public office, especially school board candidates, whose views were supportive of the organization's mission. This gave AHEAD communication channels through which to voice opinions on matters of system wide importance, such as the selection of district superintendents. This augmented voice and privileged access did not go unnoticed by system administrators with career ambitions, and helped facilitate discussion about and responsiveness to program needs, and long overdue recognition and promotions for bilingual education personnel.
Another group which influenced the development of language programs in M-DCPS was the Southern Governors' Association, whose 51st Annual Meeting was held in Miami in 1985. That meeting included a session on International Education and featured discussion of the business related educational needs of an emerging global economy and multicultural society (Conde Morencia, 1998). The background paper for that session called
attention to the benefits to be gained by drawing on the linguistic resources of language minority students and by developing linkages among foreign language, bilingual education, and international studies programs (Castro Feinberg, 1985). Recommendations on international education adopted by the Southern Governors Association were presented to the M-DCPS Superintendent, and supported by Florida's Governor Graham and by Dade's business and diplomatic communities. These recommendations led to the implementation in 1986-87 of an International Studies (IS) program housed in the Sunset Elementary/Carver Middle School feeder pattern of Coral Gables Senior High School. Programs in Spanish, French, and German were initiated which featured rigorous academic standards and content area instruction through a target language for a portion of the school day.
Three aspects of the adoption of this program are worth noting. First, within a year from the time of the request by the county's business and political leaders, the district began to operate the requested program. By 1988-1989 (two years later), a second version of the program was initiated at The North Dade Center for Modern Languages (CML) for students in grades three through five. Second, the characteristics of the feeder patterns that housed the program were atypical for the district (Office of Educational Accountability, 1987). In Sunset Elementary School, for example, 52% of the students were White non-Hispanic (compared to a district average of 23%); 1.3% of the students were of limited English proficiency (compared to a district average of 14%); and 16.2% of the students were eligible for free or reduced price lunch (compared to a district average of 46%). While the two-way bilingual schools were intended to serve a bi-ethnic student population which included LEP students, the IS program was established in a school with very few LEP students and a much larger representation than in most schools in the district of English language origin students. Third, the accelerated timeline associated with development and implementation of the IS program contrasts with the rate of expansion for two-way bilingual schools. Within a nine-year period, from 1985 to 1994, three elementary schools were implementing the IS program. Within the 15-year period, from 1975 to 1990, only one new BISO School opened. Further, of the eight BISO schools in operation in M-DCPS by 1975, only four remained when Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Elementary opened in 1990 as the fifth two-way bilingual school in the district.
In the late 80s, the school board had amended its strategic planning priorities to add biliteracy to its bilingualism goals for all students who choose to pursue them. By 1992, the strategic plan included as an indictor for accomplishment of this goal an increase in the number of two-way schools in each region of the district. A Request for Proposals (RFP) was distributed inviting schools to pilot Expanded Foreign Language (EFL) Programs, a type of two-way bilingual school-within-a-school. This model loses the synergy of the whole school effort, but effectively solves the problem of what to do with students whose parents do not want them to participate in the program. No school responded to the invitation. The RFP was re-issued, resulting in
identification of five schools who opted to participate in the program (only four continued to offer it). By 1994, while the majority on the board was opposing a suit (Xavier L. Suarez, et al. v. Dade County School Board, et al.) intended to bring about single member districting in school board elections (and careful to avoid the appearance of insensitivity to minority interests) the board voted again to intensify and accelerate, at both elementary and secondary levels, efforts to increase student opportunities to become bilingual and biliterate (Castro Feinberg, 1994, March). At this point, none of the six regions of M-DCPS provided these opportunities at all grade levels.
The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, The Policy Center of the Cuban American National Council, and Barnett Bank of Florida sponsored a study of the language related work force needs of the business community. The resulting report (Fradd, 1996) documented South Florida's need for job applicants who were both bilingual and biliterate. The findings of the report were used by the Chamber to advocate for increased opportunities for students to participate in bilingual or second language programs. Although many local high school graduates had oral command of the Spanish language sufficient for their social and family needs, their reading and writing skills in Spanish were not sufficiently developed to meet corporate standards for firms engaged in international trade and commerce. The media widely projected the image of South Florida firms forced to recruit professional and managerial staff from other countries because of the local language gap. During its final meeting in 1996, the outgoing board (the last whose members were elected countywide), gave unanimous approval to plans for the bilingual and second language program expansion called for by the business community (Kennedy Manzo, 1996), but authorized no funding for that purpose.
Soon thereafter, Thomas Boswell reported his findings based on 1990 census figures on the relationship between bilingualism and family income (Wheat, 1998; Boswell, 1998): Hispanics who spoke Spanish at home and function very well in English had an average family income of $50,376 for a family of four. Similar families who spoke only English had an average income of $32,800; income for those who spoke only Spanish was $18,240. It is no surprise that those who do not speak the national language have limited economic prospects. Boswell's study, however, highlights the economic disadvantage for Hispanics who speak only English in a community that is multilingual. Since the 70s, when a local public broadcasting station began broadcasting Survival Spanish courses for English language origin viewers, there had been widespread recognition of the advantage enjoyed by English language origin job applicants who were bilingual. By the end of the 1990s, there was confirmation of the negative economic consequences of monolingualism for members of both English and Spanish language groups.
The members of the Miami-Dade school board who took office in November 1996 (the first elected to represent single member districts), were aware of these widely quoted reports, and had the benefit of briefings from the business community and from bilingual education experts while on the
campaign trail. In short order, the board endorsed the previously approved bilingual program expansion plans, authorized budget enhancements of over 2 million dollars in support of those plans, and approved resolutions against California's Proposition 227 and in opposition to congressional bills to limit Bilingual Education Act funding to three years. The board may designate a new elementary school (opening in the year 2000) to be located on the campus of Florida International University as the next two-way bilingual school. An impressive number of schools implemented Bilingual Expansion Programs, choosing from three patterns of time distribution ranging from one to two hours a day of instruction in a target language or of instruction in a basic subject area through a target language (Instructional Leadership, November, 1996). By June 1999, opportunities for developing bilingual and biliterate skills were offered in five two-way schools, eight EFL programs (including two middle schools), and nine schools with magnet IS programs (including two middle and two senior high schools) (M-DCPS, 1999). In addition, there were 22 elementary schools, 8 middle schools, and 6 senior high schools with Bilingual Expansion Programs. Two additional elementary schools are expected to offer bilingual expansion programs in the 1999-2000 school year (B. Pereira, Director, Division of Bilingual/Foreign Language Skills, M-DCPS, personal communication, June 23, 1999). Five of the six regions in the district provided these opportunities in at all grade levels.
These developments transpired despite multiple media reports throughout the country of anti-immigrant sentiments and predictions of the end of bilingual education after California's June 1998 vote on Proposition 227. The combination of increased Hispanic representation on the board, the influence of prestigious community and chamber organizations, academic support in the form of well publicized research studies, and the active involvement of politically savvy members of the bilingual education community was successful in repelling if not eliminating resistance to bilingual schools and programs. Each of the elements in the combination had been present to some extent in times past, and each contributed to a necessary holding action resulting in program survival, but not until they were present concurrently was a critical mass of influence created sufficient to generate program enhancements and expansion.
A synthesis of the information and opinions provided by participants in the interview process is presented in this section. (A more extensive summary can be requested from the author by contacting her at rcastro@fiu.edu.)
s the administration of two-way bilingual elementary schools different from the administration of other schools?
The principals who participated in this study believe the administration of two-way schools is very different from the administration of other schools. For many of the crucial duties of the position, they had to train each other and learn while on the job, as no formal preparation programs are available that address the needed skills in ways applicable to their schools. One of the architects of the original plans for Coral Way, however, believes that anyone who is qualified to manage a school is qualified to manage any school. Other administrators suggested that managing two-way schools was no different from managing other language programs, or other minority serving schools. Whether the special skills identified by the participants in this study constitute a subspecialty or not, professional development, executive training, and administrator preparation program directors might well consider incorporating into existing programs the skills listed below.
Special Skills
The skills identified as critical by the participants include 1) scheduling, 2) hiring staff, 4) training staff, 4) budgeting, 5) articulating and gaining commitment from all stakeholders to a common vision appropriate to the mission of the school, 6) coping with resistance to that mission, 7) enhancing the school's image, 8) working with the media to communicate school success, 9) using the political process to support school budget needs and program related policy development, and 10) maintaining their own Spanish language skills. Although many of these functions are common to the administration of all schools, the difference resides in complexities of their application to the circumstances of the two-way schools. It would be useful to gauge the extent to which these opinions are shared by principals of schools with related programs, in other regions, of other grade levels, or with students from language groups other than Spanish.
Administrator Preparation Programs
There are two categories of the special skills described above unlikely to be included in university level administrator preparation programs: improvement of principals' heritage or target language skills and development of advocacy skills related to use of the media, the political process, the budget process, and grass roots organizing. In the first instance, a university response would depend on the widespread availability of faculty members with bilingual skills in educational leadership departments, or at the very least, extensive inclusion of courses offered by modern language departments as part of leadership programs. I am not aware of any institution where either condition exists. School district administrators, however, could take the lead by calling for the inclusion of opportunities for heritage or second language support as part of interdisciplinary administrator (and teacher) preparation programs and by working with their State Department of Education to find ways to accelerate the process for credentialing bilingual educators recently arrived in the United States.
In the second instance, faculty in colleges of education which depend on the good will of their surrounding school districts will find it difficult to offer courses with topics so closely linked to "creative insubordination" (Haynes & Licata, 1995). If the need for training in advocacy skills is to be addressed, it will have to be the professional associations or non-profit organizations who do so. Useful steps would include sponsorship of mailing lists, Web sites, and organizational special interest groups to foster networking among principals of two-way schools, development of conference institutes and training sessions, and facilitation of opportunities for cross-national dialog and study. The Heritage Language Initiative launched by The Center for Applied Linguistics and the National Foreign Language Center, both in Washington, DC, provides an example of how these projects might be approached.
Program Longevity
Two-way bilingual schools in the Miami area have had continued support for 36 years. What did the principals of these schools do that promoted program longevity? Analysis of interview transcripts revealed important leadership strategies which contributed to this stability, and which might be worthy of emulation elsewhere. By fostering commonality of purpose and institutional self-esteem within the school, and securing support for continued funding within the community, these strategies serve to increase the likelihood of organizational survival. They also establish conditions conducive to achievement of the instructional and equity goals that form the guiding purpose of these schools. A listing of the strategies is presented below:
To increase internal unity of purpose and foster harmony, principals:
1. Spend time talking to teachers in their classrooms, to parents, to other staff members, and students. They use the Spanish language as well as English.
2. Send notes of appreciation, clippings, and research findings. They are high communicators who celebrate everything.
3. Collect evidence of school success, and share it in many ways. When the news contains anti-bilingual education statements, they are ready. They can say, "not at our school," and bring out the local data as confirmation.
4. Keep track of graduates of the school, stay in touch with their families, and invite them back to the school so all can take pride in the accomplishments of alumni. When supporters are needed, they can easily be found.
5. Consider the needs of their teachers, and find ways to acknowledge and, when possible, to reward their contributions. They build on the strengths of their faculty members.
6. Listen to become aware of the circumstances, situations, and attitudes of their school patrons. They find ways to draw parents in, encourage them to interact with each other, and gain their understanding of and support for the school program.
7. Do the paper work "later," and take care of people first.
8. Seek teachers' involvement in decision making and support their leadership efforts. They go with them to training sessions and NABE conferences. They showcase their faculty's talents and students' successes as they draw attention to their schools.
9. Reiterate the school's mission and involve the total community in refining it. They take care to orient newcomers to the school's traditions. They help their faculty and staff understand the connection between their daily tasks and grand and selfless goals worthy of their best efforts.
10. Perpetuate a sense of pride and purpose among the members of the school community.
To insure resource acquisition and adaptation to the external environment, principals:
1. Network with each other, their peers locally, and with their colleagues nationally. They support and actively participate in a number of civic, community, alumni, advocacy, and professional associations. Members of those groups provide multiple sources of information and present opportunities for principals to "sell" their schools to community influentials.
2. Are "good neighbors" who support community events. When they need help, they know there will be reciprocity.
3. Establish linkages with the business community, and present their schools as the solution to work force needs and a force for economic development. They belong to groups such as the local Chamber of Commerce, the Arts Alliance, and the Enterprise Zone Planning Council.
4. Support the issues and causes of other groups, and establish coalitions as needed to support their own. Several of the principals worked with the Haitian American educators, for example, and joined with SALAD on immigrant rights campaigns. They participate in an annual AHEAD sponsored luncheon in celebration of Black History events.
5. Invite media attention. Whenever district rules permit school level contact with the press, they appoint an interested teacher to handle media relations for the school. They share information with and serve as resource persons to reporters. They use the press to extend the range of their communications to their stakeholders.
6. Engage in political action. They understand that politics is the means for the distribution of resources. They contribute to, hold fundraisers for, arrange for media coverage of, and volunteer in campaign offices to benefit their candidates, especially school board candidates, who support their priorities in education. They continue to help those candidates after their election by providing information and sharing their expertise.
7. Plan ahead to anticipate problems and to be ready to seize or create opportunities. They take steps to shape their environment in ways supportive of the mission of their schools.
The participants in this study act on their tacit understanding that legal, political, and economic forces make things happen in our society. Educators who harness the energy of these forces, point to support from parent groups and academe, and use the media to magnify the strength of their communications to school stake holders and community opinion molders are better able to affect the course of events that have an impact on their students and programs.
Expectations Confirmed and Disconfirmed
The comments of the participants interviewed for this study add support to all statements reported in The Directory of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Programs in the U.S. (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1999) for Dade County under the headings of "Advice to start up programs" and "Most important features of the program" (scheduling, staffing, training staff, securing resources, getting support from the school board, administration, and parents), except for the following statement: "Begin with Language Arts and one other subject area." The school level decision areas (instructional leadership and staff selection and training) identified as critical aspects of immersion program administration by Met and Lorenz (1997) were also identified as important by principals of two-way schools in M-DCPS.
There was no support for the concerns identified by Schwabsky (problems of intercultural and interlingual communication as they affect curriculum development, school reform, or equity of teachers' workload) in her 1998 study. Given the extent of support for her findings suggested by the research literature in cross-culture communications and international management, this is a totally surprising outcome, with no easy explanation. This anomaly invites re-examination.
New Questions
Analysis of the participants' comments gave rise to three questions whose answers await further research.
Size
Principals want schools big enough to permit teachers opportunity for joint planning, but not so big that it becomes difficult to maintain commitment to a common goal. What relationships exist between the size of the school and achievement of desired outcomes? What is the ideal size for a two-way bilingual school?
Ethnicity and Language
Due to changes in Miami-Dade's neighborhood and district demographics, student enrollment in two-way (BISO) schools is no longer evenly split between two ethnic groups. What is the effect of this variation on achievement of school goals or on the procedures needed to reach them? How does this variation interact with language shift, or with immigration-related increased diversity in students' national origin? To what extent do LEP students and language minority students participate in various types of bilingual schooling?
Teacher Selection and Appointment of Principals
Many principals stated that the teacher is the key to program success, and cautioned that applicants for teaching positions should be carefully screened. What procedures or instruments can assist with the process of screening applicants or with evaluation of their teaching? What instruments or procedures could be developed to help the principal make the best hiring decisions? Which could be used in the process of principal selection for two-way schools?
Building on Strength
Although the participants' reactions to concerns regarding the priority accorded in two-way programs to students' home language development needs were mixed, the questions Valdés (1997) presents are of great consequence, and warrant extended consideration. Judging from the history of bilingual schooling in M-DCPS, it may be that the more directly a program serves LEP or language minority students, the longer it takes to initiate and replicate it. Were this hypothesis confirmed, it would add support to her position.
Valdés also reminds us that bilingual education will not solve all problems affecting language minority students. The same reservation might be expressed about the institution of public education, which, like bilingual education, is increasingly under attack. Although neither is sufficient to bring about social justice, both are necessary. If we build on the strength of the good example of activism set by the bilingual educators in Miami-Dade County, perhaps we will succeed in defending both the programs and the institution.
Acknowledgements
The generous contribution of time and insights by the following participants in this study is noted with sincere appreciation: Manny Barreiro, Von Beebe, Delio Diaz, Nelson Diaz, Patrick Doyle, Marisel Elias, Paquita Holland, Marta Leyva, John Lengomin, Myriam Met, Ralph Robinett, Nereida Santa Cruz, Migdania Vega, and one other central office administrator who prefers to remain anonymous. The author also appreciates the advice of Jose Llanes on matters of methodology.
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Notes
List of Related Web Sites
CAL Directory of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Programs in the U.S. http://www.cal.org/db/2way/
CBER/BRJ http://www.asu.edu/educ/cber/
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota http://carla.acad.umn.edu/intercultural.html
M-DCPS http://www.dade.k12.fl.us/
OISE http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/