To Comply or Not to Comply: Which is the Question?

About this poem

On August 29, 1974, the historic landmark ASPIRA Consent Decree establishing the right of New York City Public School students with limited English proficiency to receive bilingual education (instruction in the learner’s native language and in English) was signed into law. In the landmark 1974 decision, Lau v. Nichols, the United States Supreme Court had established the right of English Language Learner (ELL) Students to have “a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educational program. ” Later that same year, an agreement between the New York City Board of Education and ASPIRA of New York (called the ASPIRA Consent Decree) assured that ELL students would be provided Bilingual Education (instruction in the learner’s native language and in English as a second language. I was part of a monitoring team of bilingual educators employed in the Program Planning Implementation Unit (PPIU) of the Center for Bilingual Education of the Office of Bilingual Education of the New York City Public Schools, assigned to ensure full implementation of the Consent Decree regulations, not always an easy task to accomplish, largely because of the many roadblocks that bilingual educators encountered in their diligence to satisfy the court’s requirements. This poem, “To Comply or Not to Comply: Which is the Question,?” was composed in acrostic format on May 3, 1978, to document that requirement and some of the difficulties experienced at school sites in doing so; e.g., “cooking the books,” under reporting of entitlement of students, under reporting student admissions, improper licensing of teachers required to provide instruction to English language learners. Despite these “inconveniences,” Program Specialists, as monitors, we’re unceasing in their efforts to achieve full compliance. more »