Gisela Ortega Linguistics 332 Introduction to Linguistics

The Debate amongst Ebonics The Oakland Unified School Districts Ebonics controversy

Californias Oakland Unified School District was in the middle of an Education Crisis in 1996. The African American population of students was at a dropout rate of 7.6% while their GPA accounted for an average of 1.8. On December 18th, 1996 the School Districts seven-member board took initiative on finding a solution to this problem. They realized that there was a difference amongst the black communitys language patterns that was contributing to their decline in their studies. This language pattern is called Ebonics. The Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution that called for the education of students in Ebonics as a first language or so it seemed, but was later revised to call for the recognition of Ebonics as a bridge to learning Standard English. This decision launched a hype of negative criticism from the media which avoided the bigger picture of implementing a program that would achieve the goal of teaching proficient Standard English. Ebonics is a dialect of English that descended from enslaved Black Africans from West Africa, the Caribbean and North America. It spread within the 16th and 17th century during the slave trade. Ebonics is the blend of ebony which means black and phonics or speech sounds. The Oakland, California area is an area in which Ebonics is primarily spoken, to the extent that the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution declaring Ebonics to be the primary language of its African-American students in its schools. This decision was put fourth partly due to the struggle of Standard English and other areas of study within the African American community. They averaged the lowest grades, and though they made up 53 percent of the 52,000 students in the

district, 71 percent of those were enrolled in special education courses because of their different language patterns.1 This resolution not only stirred up controversy, but created a national debate. Instead of referring this different language pattern as Ebonics, it is also referred to as African American Vernacular English. Vernacular is defined as the native language or dialect of a specific population. In this case it would pertain to African Americans, though there are exceptions. On December 18th 1996, the Oakland Unified School District declared Ebonics to be the primary language of its African American students. On January 15th 2007, Oakland retracted its declaration of linguistic independence and reaffirmed a more traditional goal of teaching its students standard English by recognizing Ebonics.2 This resolution called for federal bilingual educational funds in order to support their program. This meant being alongside Latino, Asian, Native American and other students whose language background is other than English. These African American students were struggling without the proficiency in Standard English.

64% of students retained, or made to repeat a grade were African American 67% of students classified as truants were African American 80% of suspended students were African American, while 19% of African American high African American students had an overall grade point average of 1.80 on a 4.0 scale, the

school seniors failed to graduate lowest grade point average for any ethnic or racial group in the district3
1

Knapp, Don. "Oakland schools adopt 'Black English' policy." CNN.com.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9612/19/black.english/index.html (accessed April 15, 2012).

Rodrigues, Anthony. Linguist List, "Ebonics: Revised Oakland resolution." Last modified 01/19/1997. Accessed Baron, Dennis. University of Illinois, "What happened in Oakland? The Ebonics controversy of 1996-97."

April 15, 2012. http://linguistlist.org/issues/8/8-56.html.

3

Accessed April 15, 2012. http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/403/403 mne/ebonics.pdf.

The Oakland Unified School District planned to provide a special task force that would instruct black students in both Ebonics and Standard English. Members of the Linguistic Society of America [LSA] unanimously approved a resolution describing Ebonics as systematic and rulegoverned like all natural speech varieties, and referred Oaklands resolutions as linguistically and pedagogically sound.4 The Oakland Unified School District recognized that these individuals had different language patterns and did something about it. No one was implementing the idea of wanting to change the English language and teach Black English. It was to teach their student body how to speak Standard English by having teachers who can recognize and have the tools necessary to help teach Standard English. The task force in the Oakland resolution was compromised of scholars, administrators, teachers, parents, community members and board members. They spent 6 months examining the issue and concluded with an effective way to master the commerce language we call English thought the Standard English Proficiency Program; 1. African American students shall develop English language proficiency as the foundation for their achievements in all core competency areas. 2. All existing programs shall be implemented fully to enhance the achievements of African American students. 3. The Task Force on the Education of African American Students shall be retained in order to assist OUSD in developing work plans and implementation strategies. 4. Financial commitments shall be made to implement the Task Force on the Education of African American Students recommendations during the current fiscal year. 5. The district's identification and assessment criteria for GATE and Special Education Programs shall be reviewed. 6. The community shall be mobilized to partner with OUSD to achieve recommended outcomes. 7. OUSD shall develop a policy which requires all categorical and general program funding to be used to ensure access to and mastery of the core curriculum. 8. All resources of the district shall be applied and used to ensure that these recommendations be implemented.

Rickford, John R. "Suite for Ebony and Phonics." Stanford. (1997): 1-6.

http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/SuiteForEbonyAndPhonics.html (accessed April 15, 2012).

9. OUSD shall develop recruitment procedures that facilitate the hiring of administrators,

teachers, counselors and support staff that reflect the culture of African American students composition of the student population.5 The Board of Education implied in their report to adopt a policy on teaching English, not Ebonics. They wanted to promote English development and further strengthen pre-school education and parent community participation in order to make this movement towards progress stronger. Every child must have the opportunity to achieve proficiency in the English language. The Oakland Unified School district took a bold risk by passing this resolution that would tackle the issues they were facing. They opened new alternatives instead of ignoring the language structures that prevented their students from achieving academically. Unfortunately, due to the presses media hype about the issue a lot of misconceptions rose up. A few of those were;

*Oakland School District has decided to teach Ebonics in place of English. *The District is trying to classify Ebonics (i.e. "Black English,") speaking students as Bilingual. *OUSD is only attempting to pilfer federal and state funds. *OUSD is trying to create a system of perverse incentives that reward failure and lower standards. *Oakland is condoning the use of Slang. *Oakland has gone too far. *Ebonics further segregates an already racially divided school district. *There is no statistical evidence to support this approach or that this approach will improve student achievement.6 The Oakland Unified School District was in no way trying to teach Ebonics to its students.

It was to provide its teachers and parents with the right tools to address this language pattern that the children bring to the classroom. They did not want to undervalue the way their students spoke,

Landrum, Joycelyn. University of Illinois, "Oakland Policy on Ebonics." Accessed April 16, 2012.

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jlandrum/www/oakland.htm.

Landrum, Joycelyn. University of Illinois, "Oakland Policy on Ebonics."

but build their language skills to fully achieve Standard English. Harsh criticism still riled up the nation, as it was viciously described as bad English and viewed very negatively. Ebonics according to linguists is a dialect of English. It is not slang as slang refers just to the vocabulary of a language or dialect. Ebonics includes non-slang words which have been around for a while, and are used by people of all age groups.7 There are distinctive patterns involved in Ebonics within pronunciation and grammar because they are more systematic and deep-rooted. Ebonics shares most of Englishs vocabulary which are used informally. It can be understood for the most part by other American English speakers, still being distinctively different at the same time. Its verb tenses and aspects for instance, as shown below; 1. Present progressive: He runnin (=SE "He is running" or "He's running") 2. Present habitual progressive: He be runnin (=SE "He is usually running") 3. Present intensive habitual progressive: He be steady runnin (=SE"He is usually running in an intensive, sustained manner." 4. Present perfect progressive: He bin runnin (=SE "He has been running") 5. Present perfect progressive with remote inception: He BIN runnin (=SE "He has been running for a long time, and still is")

Source: Rickford, John R. "Suite for Ebony and Phonics."

In sentences 1 and 2 we see the distinction between non-habitual and habitual. We see the use of a non-use or the use of be. We also see the -ing suffix which is lost. Noting that in sentence 4 bin is unstressed, while sentence 5 BIN is stressed. Though Ebonics it is referred as lazy English because of its tendency to omit word final consonants, it does not allow the deletion of the second consonant in a word filling sequence unless both consonants are either voiceless, as with st, or
7

Rickford, John R. "Suite for Ebony and Phonics." Stanford.

voiced, as with nd. In the case of pant, the final t is voiceless, but the preceding n is voiced. Not only is Ebonics systematic in following this rule, but even its exceptions to the rulenegative forms like ain, and don are not random.8 It omits verbs like is and are and creates its own fillers as we see in the above example, which have been seen and are present in Niger-Congo languages. As John Rickford said, it is no more lazy English than Italian is lazy Latin. Ebonics is indentified amongst Black identity, but it does not apply to all. There has been a vast movement of Ebonics within its influence of rap and hip hop and has crossed over to other groups of people, especially amongst youth. It is seen as hip. Though Ebonics is stigmatized amongst the larger society, the Oakland school board was trying to fulfill its duty to help their students succeed by helping their students increase their mastery of Standard English. With this mastery, they would be able to do better in school all around and in the work force. From the point of view of most linguistic they agree in the harmony of Ebonics and taking it into accounts it in teaching speakers to read and write in Standard English. The Oakland resolution turned out to be more than a linguistic ideology battle, but racial discrimination and separateness. This dialect represents their racial pride, and was completely put down by the nation. Ethnic and racial minorities even with the mastering of a language are stigmatized. The irrational and racist discourse made it almost impossible to have a carful conversation about the important educational, political, and linguistic issues that are embedded in the resolution.9 The Oakland Resolution was a bit too radical and failed because of the conservative view of the English language.

Ibid.

Perry, Theresa and Lisa D. Delpit. The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language, and the Education of AfricanAmerican Children. Boston: Beacon, 1998. Print.