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.