After finally receiving the so-called new curriculum for the LINCC program, I set out to do a comparative analysis of it with the former ELI program. There was no need for analytic skill. No surprise. LINCC is ELI with trappings.

            I then perused what might be called a mission statement on the LINCC program. This paper proves rather conclusively that the programs are the same. Some minor cosmetic changes were added to take on the appearance of newness, even though the basic concept for both is holism.  These folks actually believe that a holistic approach to curriculum development is new, and that when you change an aspect of the approach, you create an entirely new program. That is nothing short of inexperience with curriculum development on the one hand and insincerity on the other.

            It might interest these folks to know that fifty years ago core-curriculum was all the rage because it was holistic—complete with cross-over syllabi and team-teaching. But the disgrace isn’t their attempt to innovate with an idea that’s been around for a long time. The disgrace is in perverting an educational idea into a means of making money at the expense of the students and the very essence of pedagogical methodology.

            ESL classes were traditionally taught by full-time or adjunct teachers—professionals all—under the jurisdiction of an academic department. The creation of the English Language Institute ushered in holism as an innovation. They believed they had introduced something new and that success would be a natural outcome. Fanelli and Ostling saw a way of making money by eliminating profession teachers. In violation of federal regulations, classes were moved out of the college into continuing education. New teachers were hired, paid poverty wages, and made to work long hours. And the money rolled in.        

            No one cared if anything resembling teaching was going on. There was money to be made. The proof that the program was a disaster comes not from me, but from a special committee charged with taking a “Fresh Look” at the ELI program. This committee of four full-time professionals wrote a devastatingly frank report that shows that for four years this program floundered. It seems the “Fresh Look” was the only look, because had anyone else observed what was going on, this program would have been scuttled lickety-split.

Now, let’s take a look at the college’s own evaluation of this new way to teach English as a Second Language. The report was privy and not meant to see the light of day—hence the stonewalling.

The quotes that follow are from the “Fresh Look” report. The words are theirs. The comments are mine:

            “At our first meeting, we determined that in order to accomplish this review and make a clear assessment of the program, it was necessary to conduct classroom observations.”

Since what they discovered was so bad, I assume that observations were not a regular part of this program. Therefore, no one knew what was going on within the four walls of the classroom until the fresh look.

            “It was the intent of the Fresh Look committee to read the ELI curriculum and determine whether the courses we observed were adhering to it. Unfortunately, the committee did not have access to the ELI curriculum.”

Neither did the teachers! Six of the eight recommendations deal with curriculum. Number four reads: “The ELI must disseminate the curriculum to ELI faculty.” This was four years after the start. You can’t make this stuff up!

            “Given that the ELI was designed to be holistic and that the course descriptions in the ELI catalog and syllabi indicate skill integration, we were rather surprised at how little of the whole language approach is being used. The classes we observed do not integrate skills.”

            What the committee was beginning to understand was that the program was not the problem. The teaching was the problem.

            “We found that instructors are spending most of their time doing grammar drills and exercises from the texts that consist of many fill-in-the-blank and other types of short answer questions. We observed shocking differences from class to class with respect to whether students actually write/learn principles of writing. It was an exception to see students being assigned essays, for in most classes the creative process of writing is basically being ignored...Most distressing were Expression classes in which students barely had a chance to speak, spoke only to answer questions in the text, spoke only to read something they wrote/or something someone else had written, or didn’t get to speak at all.

            Read on. The committee’s frustration gets heated.

            “Although there are tutoring sessions in each area, we can also find an imbalance in this as well...It must be clear that it is not just some skill areas that are underrepresented but some components of what we consider to be part of the grammar of human language that are being overlooked as well.

            The committee then goes into great detail as to the shortcomings regarding the ineffective teaching going on in the program. To illustrate the unbelievable goldbricking going on in the classroom, the report gives an example of what one committee member observed.

            “The impact of this is that lessons are disjointed and not cohesive. Take as an example the flow of one three-hour class that a committee member observed.”

‘The teacher spent the first half hour speaking about outside programs where students can also learn English.

The next half hour was spent discussing how students dealt with the culture shock they experienced when they first came to the United States.

Then forty-five minutes were devoted to demonstrative adjectives.

In the last hour students were given various handouts dealing with topic sentences. One of the assignments was to write (T) if the sentence was the topic sentence or (S) if the sentence was the supporting sentence. Students did not do any writing of their own.’

“The class described above is not completely atypical…many jumped from one exercise to another in the text, and from one skill to another. The potential impact is a lack of comprehension and an inability to apply skills and concepts.”

The reader must be gasping in disbelief. But before we leave the report, let’s take a look at staffing. That can round out this picture of academic folly.

“There are 25 staff members and a director. This does not include the 17 tutors, approximately 30 instructors and a secretary. The number of students in Fall (sic) 04 was 650 and in Spring (sic) 05, 550.

“After reviewing the chart, the function of each staff member is still unclear to us. Even after checking the ELI homepage, we were unable to ascertain or judge whether the staff members were qualified.

“After surveying the list of tutors, their expertise in being language tutors was not immediately apparent because we do not have details about their experience. Only one tutor possessed a degree in TESOL, nine had B.A.’s in mostly unrelated fields, three held only A.A. degrees and three had not completed their Associates Degree.

“We also requested a list of faculty and their qualifications but this information was not provided. Consequently, we have no way of knowing about anyone’s qualifications and we can only write about the performance of the one’s that we observed.”

While the report is damning, it is ironic that it came out two years before we in the AFA got involved. The committee’s recommendations were obviously ignored because when we observed ELI classes, what we observed was as bad as or worse than what the committee observed two years earlier.

            And what they observed was a disgrace by the lowest of standards. By conventional standards it was criminal. Federal regulations were violated when these classes were moved into an adult education setting. Students that were promised an education were being denied even a semblance of pedagogical knowhow. A union contract was being violated. Trustees were being duped into believing that this was a bona fide educational program. After being shown by a committee of professionals, with detailed specificity, that the program was a dismal failure, nothing changed. When forced to abandon the program because they lost at arbitration, the administration changed the name and continued the program with most of the same teachers who were caught goldbricking.

            Something tells me that somebody should go to jail. This kind of fraud has been going on since 2000. One report shows that the administration made $600,000 profit in one year. So, they must have made millions since the program’s inception. It certainly has cost the students millions. For what? An ill-conceived program staffed by inexperienced amateurs, overseen by a corrupt administration interested not in education but in money—an administration that would hire scabs to take the place of professionals while violating a union contract and duping the Board of Trustees into violating their own agreement aimed at putting this program back into the hands of the professionals.

How should this fraud be dealt with? Should we inform the office of Homeland Security? The District Attorney? The news media? Hundreds of students have been duped. They certainly were not being educated.

This was Jack Ostling’s creation. He’s the vice-president in charge of academic affairs. Teaching and learning is an academic affair. Did he ever observe a class? Did he read the fresh look report? Did he know that the committee’s recommendations were not being followed? Did he know that instructors did not have the curriculum? (Every instructor we asked for a copy of the curriculum did not have one. That was two years after the committee report.) Did he know that instructors were incompetent? Did he know that the qualifications of these instructors were not available? Did he know anything?

He should have known and if he did, he is culpable. Fanelli should have known and if he did, he is culpable. The trustees cannot be expected to know anything. Their job, as they see it, is to do what they are told. But since that is not their job, they too are culpable.

The one thing the record proves is that this program, whatever it is called, was and is a disgrace. The fact that Fanelli and Ostling are now trying to keep it alive with a new name is hard proof that they are culpable. The fact that the Board of Trustees voted for the resolution that perpetuated this disgrace is proof of their culpability. They are responsible for perpetuating a fraud on the federal government, the students, the faculty, and both campus unions.

They have not heard the end of this saga.