The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago have a shortage of bilingual teachers to serve the growing bilingual student population.

One-third to half of all bilingual students in Illinois live in Chicago, said Tracy Dell’Angela from the Consortium on Chicago School Research. The lack of qualified and certified teachers is taking its toll on students.

The annual “Illinois Kids Count” report by the organization Voices for Illinois Children released early this month states that only 57.2 percent of all limited English students graduate from high school in the state of Illinois. The majority of these students speak Spanish, a change Chicago schools are struggling to adjust to.

“There is a population of limited English students, and yes, it has increased,” Dell’Angela said.

She said while African-American students still outnumber Latino students in terms of enrollment, the trend is changing. The number of African-American students enrolled is decreasing, while, at the same time, Latino enrollment is going up.

Chicago Public Schools have an “overabundance” of teacher applicants, said spokesperson Frank Shuftan. There are too many of the same types of applicants and not enough of the needed specialists. Subjects such as history and English have too many certified people coming out of college, and other subjects such as special education, world languages, math and science are not turning out enough certified college graduates, Shuftan said.

The ideal situation for school districts is to have twice as many applicants as positions available, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2008 Supply and Demand Report. The report states that the number of people certified to be bilingual teachers in Illinois in 2007 was 364, and the number of bilingual teachers hired was 252. There were 249 districts that had a shortage of bilingual teachers in 2008.

This imbalance is affecting Chicago Public Schools because students are not performing in the subjects where teachers are desired. The Kids Count report also stated that most Illinois students are not ready for college when they finish high school.

“Twenty percent of high school students are ready for college,” said Kids Count project manager Melissa Baker.

Baker said that number is based on the ACT scores from the exam taken their junior year of high school.

The report has several major educational concerns that will “confront state and local policy makers as they formulate education and policy,” Baker said, but the biggest concern in the report was the growing diversity in schools and the lack of resources to meet the needs of these students.

In the 2007-08 school year, Chicago Public Schools had a 14.8 percent population of students who were “English language learners,” Shuftan said.

There are some programs in place to help increase the graduation rates and number of ESL teachers in Chicago Public Schools. One of the programs that is currently underway in Illinois is a foreign teacher exchange.

The Illinois State Board of Education has implemented a program with Spain and Mexico to bring certified Spanish speaking teachers into the schools.

Also, by 2016, the “Grow Your Own Teacher Initiative” will be implemented in full force. This initiative, which started in 2007, will bring 1,000 teachers from “non-traditional” sources, such as other countries, to Illinois and Chicago, said Mary Fergus of the Illinois Board of Education.

“This program will likely bolster the number of bilingual teachers,” Fergus said.

Fergus also said the board of education has recommended an increase of $7.9 million for 2010 just for bilingual education.

The State Board of Education states despite disparities, there are a few places where Spanish speaking, bilingual students are excelling. Latino high school seniors make up 13.4 percent of students who take advanced placement exams in Illinois.

For more information on the Illinois State Board of Education’s new laws, initiatives and bilingual education, visit ISBE.net. The Kids Count annual report is available at Voices4Kids.org.

BY THE NUMBERS:

•75 percent graduation rate for African-American and Latino students

•93 percent graduation rate for white and Asian students

•20 percent of Illinois students ready for college, based on ACT score

•80 percent of CPS growth during past 20 years is Latino enrollment