Learning the Language

There doesn't seem to be anything really surprising in the official guidance (Word doc) that the U.S. Department of Education has released spelling out how schools should implement testing and accountability provisions for English-language learners under the No Child Left Behind Act. (Read the corresponding regulations published Sept. 13 in the Federal Register.)

I picked up one detail that was new to me: the clock starts ticking as soon as English-language learners (the Education Department calls them limited-English-proficient students) enter U.S. schools for the three-year time period that they are permitted to take state tests in their native languages.

The 14-page "non-regulatory guidance" contains a rationale for one of the federal government's most controversial regulations concerning this group of students: to permit schools to exempt English-language learners from only one administration of a state's standardized reading test. That means that any ELLs who have been in U.S. schools for at least 12 months have to take their state's regular reading test.

Here's an excerpt: "[T]he Department strongly believes that all LEP students--including recently arrived LEP students--need to be included in assessments, with necessary accommodations, and visible in accountability systems in order to improve both instruction and achievement of this population."

Readers: If something in the guidance really strikes you, please let the rest of us know through the Comment section of this blog.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Washington Post writer Maria Glod interviewed quite a few children for her story published today about how Virginia's change in testing policy for English-language learners is affecting children. She focuses on school districts that lost their battle against the U.S. Department of Education to extend the policy that was in place through the current school year. Lots of stories about education policy don't quote students, so it's refreshing to read their observations.

See my earlier posts, "Virginia's Definition of Test Participation," and "Fairfax County School Officials Back Down in Testing Impasse."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, aims to soon be able to give interviews in Spanish, according to an article inThe Politico, based on an interview with his private Spanish tutor.

A couple of months ago Mr. Gingrich offended some Latinos by equating bilingual education with "the language of living in the ghetto," according to news reports. He later appeared in a video on YouTube in which he tried--in Spanish--to clarify his comments. See my earlier posts, "More on Newt Gingrich's Spanish Lessons," and "Newt Gingrich Offers an Apology of Sorts."

At the time the video was made, Mr. Gingrich's Spanish fluency level was mid-intermediate, according to Ricardo Gonzalez, his teacher from an Atlanta-based company, Bilingual America. According to today's article in The Politico, Mr. Gonzalez sat in on the recording of Mr. Gingrich's message on YouTube to make sure the former congressman didn't make matters worse in the clarification.

Mr. Gonzalez says Mr. Gingrich is on track to be able to give interviews in Spanish by fall.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington, Va., has published a paper that implies that some school districts in California should be reclassifying more of their English-language learners as fluent in English each year. In the 2005-2006 school year, California's school districts, on average, reclassified 9.6 percent of English-language learners as fluent, the paper states. It features case studies for several districts, including the 19,600-student Alvord Unified School District, in Riverside, Calif., where the reclassification rate in the 2005-2006 school year was 1 percent, and the 89,000-student Long Beach Unified School District, in Long Beach, Calif., where the reclassification rate was 15.2 percent.

Please note that while the Lexington Institute calls the paper a "research study" on its Web site, the piece is written by Joanne Jacobs, a freelance writer in California, who draws from other people's research.

The paper quotes a few questions from one researcher, Robert Linquanti, the project director and senior research associate for WestEd, a San-Francisco-based research and service organization, that, in my experience, many educators can't readily answer about the English-language learners in their schools--particularly educators who don't directly run programs for such students. Among those questions: "How many students leave your elementary schools still as [English-learners]? Of those, how many have been there since kindergarten or 1st grade? How many go on to be reclassified? How well do they do?"

Mr. Linquanti notes that when educators dig up the data to answer those questions, they are sometimes dismayed to find that English-language learners aren't doing well in middle and high school, according to the report.

In addition, the paper includes an interesting anecdote about how the 13,400-student Evergreen Elementary School District in San Jose, Calif., held a ceremony to honor students who had graduated from the category of being English-language learners because they had attained fluency. That's a practice that, it seems to me, would nudge schools to pay more attention to how well they are helping students become fluent.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My last blog entry is wrong in telling what a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled regarding testing of English-language learners in California. After talking with lawyers for both sides of the case, I conclude that the article I posted from the Santa Cruz Sentinel overstates the reach of the ruling--and I distorted it further in my characterization of the article.

(Matt King, the journalist who wrote the article, told me today that he wrote it based on what he took directly from the ruling in which "the judge made it very clear that he believes the state is acting properly when it limits language choices on standardized tests"; Mr. King wasn't able to talk to lawyers on either side before the article went to press, so he says perhaps "it doesn't have the whole story." He stands by the conclusions he made from the ruling.)

Lawyers for both sides told me in telephone interviews that the judge has not decided in Coachella Valley Unified School District v. Californina whether or not English-only testing is okay or the current tests used under the No Child Left Behind Act are "valid and reliable" for English-language learners. Rather, Judge Richard Kramer ruled he doesn't have the authority through one particular legal process called a "writ of mandate" to order California to change its testing system for purposes of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to Mary Hernandez, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, and Elizabeth Lovingood, who is representing the California Department of Education.

You can read the tentative ruling on Coachella Valley Unified School District v. California for yourself here. (If you have trouble with this link, you can find the ruling as well on the court's Web site. The case number is 505334.) Ms. Hernandez said a final ruling is expected to be released in a few days but isn't likely to differ dramatically from this one.

Ms. Hernandez acknowledges the judge found California did not abuse its discretion in selecting its tests. She adds that the judge has not yet dismissed the entire case, and he could still find fault with California's standardized testing system for ELLs through the remaining causes of action in the case.

While no one can predict what the judge might do, an excerpt of his ruling indicates he's reluctant to meddle in the state's decisions about testing and the federal education law: "It is emphasized that rational people could differ as to whether administration of NCLB assessments in a second language, or in multiple additional languages, is also feasible, or desirable, or otherwise appropriate. The test for this court, however, is not to choose among competing rational alternatives and then mandate the judicially chosen one. To the contrary, decisions such as how to assess student performance for purposes of NCLB are best left to other branches of government..."

Here's yesterday's blog item, "A San Francisco Judge Rules That English-Only Tests are OK.".

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A San Francisco judge has ruled in a case that is being very closely watched in California that the state doesn't have to provide its standardized tests used for the No Child Left Behind Act in Spanish or languages other than English, according to an article published today in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The article notes that plaintiffs in the case, Coachella Valley Unified School District v. California, argued that California has "violated its duty to provide valid and reliable academic testing" for English-language learners. The judge disagreed.

The article says it's not clear if the attorneys for the eight school districts that sued the state will appeal the decision. California has 1.6 million English-language learners, most who are Spanish-speaking, so the ruling is a big deal.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I keep an eye out for whether English-language learners know about and participate in extracurricular school activities, so I took note this week that one of the top winners in a national writing contest about the importance of diversity in schools is an English-language learner. Laura Machado, 11, a 5th grader at Maupin Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., was selected as the top winner in the category of children under age 12 for her short piece, "Nations Are Gardens."

Laura told me in a telephone interview yesterday that she moved to the United States from Cuba three years ago without knowing any English, and now has an English-as-a-second-language class for an hour each school day. At first, she said, "pronouncing the words" was hard. But her father, Eduardo Machado, said in Spanish that Laura learned English quickly and now sometimes interprets for the family at doctors' appointments or in other settings.

The national writing contest was sponsored by the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights, which is located in New York and describes itself as "a non-partisan movement working to ensure that our courts protect and preserve equal justice, fairness, and opportunity." The organization used the contest as a means to promote its support of the racial-diversity plans of the Seattle, Wash., and Jefferson County, Ky., school districts that were challenged in federal courts and are the subject of two U.S. Supreme Court cases expected to be ruled on this year. "We launched the essay contest because we thought it was extremely important to hear what the kids thought about diversity—and for young people to know the cases were before the courts," said Marianne Engelman-Lado, the general counsel for the organization. (Read a Dec. 4, 2006, Education Week article about the court cases here.)

Laura received a $250 prize and an all-expenses-paid trip for her and her father to visit New York City. Yesterday they spoke to me from there, where they had participated in a press conference for the organization that included experts on the U.S. Supreme Court cases.

Teachers: What do you think about the fact that the organization tied the essay contest and the announcement of the essay winners to promotion of its views on the cases pending in the U.S. Supreme Court? The organization publicized the contest to English teachers. Would you have encouraged your students to participate?

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Six large education organizations--including the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the National School Boards Association--contend that any measure reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act should ensure that educators won't have to test English-language learners until after they show "comprehension of English." They don't spell out how many months of instruction would enable the average English-language learner to be able to understand English or how educators would determine if students can do that.

View the groups' May 18 statement on reauthorization of NCLB here.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A research-based initiative being piloted in 15 schools in six school districts in California requires participating schools to commit to "bilingualism, biliteracy, and multiculturalism" in teaching English-language learners, according to Jan Gustafson, the director of the project, called the PROMISE Initiative. (Its long name is: Pursuing Regional Opportunities for Mentoring, Innovation, and Success for English Learners.)

Six Southern California county offices of education launched the initiative three years ago with a federal grant of $500,000. The pilot project started in September. Each of the six school districts pays an annual fee of $10,000 to participate.

By 2009, the PROMISE Initiative aims to produce findings of how best to educate English-language learners that are backed up with proof from participating schools. Areas of focus include curriculum, assessment, professional development, and parent involvement. But from the start, the schools accepted to participate had to give a nod to research that favors bilingual education over English-only methods and promise to incorporate the use of students' native languages in instruction. This is required even of schools that employ the default method in California for ELLs: "structured English immersion."

As most of you probably know, California voters passed a ballot initiative in 1998 that curtailed bilingual education. Under that state law, schools can provide bilingual education as the primary means of instruction only to children whose parents asked for a waiver from English-immersion programs.

Most of the schools in the PROMISE initiative are running bilingual programs for some of their ELLs through the waiver process. But the rest are expected to "be creative" and find a way to incorporate native-language instruction, such as through after-school programs, Ms. Gustafson said.

She acknowledged in a phone interview with me this week that supporting the use of native-language instruction in California is "an uphill battle." But it's clearly a battle that the PROMISE initiative is willing to fight.

The PROMISE initiative received national attention when its leaders testified about the No Child Left Behind Act and ELLs at a subcommittee hearing in March of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. Read the testimony here.

See an earlier related post, "Bilingual Education Grows in Texas, Declines in Some Other States."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Motivating English-language learners to use their Spanish is a bigger challenge than getting them to improve their English in some two-way immersion programs, according to a book published recently by the Center for Applied Linguistics. The book, Realizing the Vision of Two-Way Immersion: Fostering Effective Programs and Classrooms, profiles four schools with two-way immersion programs, also known as dual-language programs. These are programs in which children who are dominant in English and children who are dominant in Spanish learn both languages in the same classrooms. In many school districts, such programs have become the favored model of bilingual education. (I wrote about the research on such programs in February 2005.)

In focus groups, the perspectives of teachers "ran counter to the perspective of many Americans, who believe that Spanish speakers are reluctant to learn or speak English," the researchers write in the book. Teachers saw that "outside pressures--from peers, parents, testing and curriculum mandates, U.S. society--make it difficult for students to resist the pull toward English," they said.

The researchers describe program elements that they conclude have led to the success of the four profiled schools in producing students who are truly bilingual. For example, they say that such programs not only explicitly teach literacy skills but involve students in learning activities in which language objectives are meshed with academic content objectives.

The book can be ordered for $17.95 here.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some teachers of English as a second language and professors in the field are trying to convince Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to veto a bill that some other teachers have worked very hard to get introduced and passed. The bill, passed earlier this month by both the Florida House and Senate, would decrease to 60 from 300 the number of in-service hours of English-as-a-second-language training required of reading teachers who want to work with English-language learners.

The idea for the bill came from the Clay County Education Association, which represents 2,500 teachers and is affiliated with the Florida Education Association and the National Education Association.

Constance Higginbotham, the president of the Clay County Education Association, told me in an interview last week that because of a state consent decree signed in 1990, English-language learners are assured of having an English-language arts teacher who is required to have had 300 hours of specialized training to work with such students. It's "unnecessary," she contended, to require that same level of specialized training for reading teachers who work with English-language learners as well.

But Rosa Castro Feinberg, who is retired as an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Florida International University, said that teachers and professors participating in a listserv she manages that was set up by the Sunshine State TESOL of Florida have organized to try to convince Gov. Crist to veto the bill. (Their organization and the Bilingual Association of Florida, which is affiliated with the National Association for Bilingual Education, are in the process of writing a position statement on the bill.) They argue that English-language learners need reading teachers who are trained extensively in their special needs. Ms. Castro Feinberg said the 300 hours now required include courses in applied linguistics, cross-cultural communication, curriculum development, testing, and methods.

"You can't do all of that in one 60-hour course," Ms. Castro Feinberg said in a phone interview.

Ms. Feinberg and others who oppose the bill interpret Florida's consent decree as requiring the 300 hours for reading teachers, while Ms. Higginbotham and the Clay County Education Association disagree with that interpretation.

I gather from my conversations with both of these women that there's no shortage of passion on both sides of the debate.

(Read the Florida Senate's bill, S2512, here.)

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Some of my sources have been telling me that I should look into how the break-up of large comprehensive high schools into small schools is affecting English-language learners. Well, Samual G. Freedman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, has beaten me to doing some very concrete reporting on this topic. He wrote a piece that ran in the New York Times on May 9 focusing on how English-language learners apparently aren't being served as well as they were before Columbus High School in the Bronx became part of the small-schools movement.

The story of the numbers alone is interesting. Three years ago, Mr. Freedman writes, Columbus was a traditional high school with 548 ELLs among its 3,491 students. Now, he says, the Columbus campus has 3,389 students--about the same as it had three years ago--but only 344 students are ELLs. And fewer than a third of those 344 students are in the small schools on campus, which don't have to accept such students until after they've been operating for two years.

"So where did the missing 200 ELLs go?," he writes. "Nobody at the department suggests that the number of immigrant students has suddenly dropped. ... And what is the quality of the English-as-a-second-language services they are receiving there?"

That last question is one that I'd like to put to a number of small-schools arrangements across the country.

Bethany Plett, a teacher of English as a second language who is getting a Ph.D in education at Texas A&M in College Station, also presented findings on this issue at the recent conference of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages in Seattle. She contends that a requirement by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a key funder of efforts to divide large high schools into smaller ones, that ELLs not be concentrated in one single small school after a break-up of a large school makes it harder for educators to address the needs of such students.

For more on how ELLs are being served--or not being served--by small schools in New York City, read a report published in 2006 by Advocates for Children of New York and the New York Immigration Coalition.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Cristina De León-Menjivar of the Napa Valley Register has written a series about how the Napa Valley Unified School District in California has responded to provisions for English-language learners under the No Child Left Behind Act. "Despite the district's solid record of success getting newcomers up to speed in English quickly," she writes, "overall that student population is a drag on the district's test scores."

I notice that some of the educators in the Napa Valley school district were adept in slipping into interviews their views about how they'd like to see the federal education law altered. For example, in the April 30 article, "Under Examination," Barbara Nemko, the county superintendent of schools, is quoted as saying that the federal government should consider "growth" in the progress of English-language learners "instead of setting an arbitrary standard" to judge how well schools are teaching such students.

The journalist notes that the school district is meeting the goal set by the state under Title III of NCLB for its English-language learners to improve one level of proficiency in English each year. That goal is measured by an English-language proficiency test--the California English Language Development Test. But the district isn't meeting goals set for those students when it comes to adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under Title I of the act.

The goal to improve one level of proficiency in English each year under Title III is an example of considering "growth." The AYP goals under Title I, by contrast, hold English-learners to the same benchmarks as all other students.

This aspect of the series illustrates a point that a California researcher, Robert Linquanti, made when I interviewed him recently for a story in Education Week. He said that in the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, he'd like to see the goals under Title I for English-language learners structured more like they are under Title III. Mr. Linquanti is the project director and senior research associate for WestEd.

Title III contains provisions in the law specifically for English-language learners while Title I contains provisions for disadvantaged students.

"There’s a lot that Title I can learn from Title III that looks at kids wherever they are on the spectrum," Mr. Linquanti said.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I hear a lot of talk about how provisions for English-language learners in the the No Child Left Behind Act are indirectly making it more difficult for schools to offer bilingual education programs. I checked out this premise for an article that runs in Education Week this week.

What I found was that it varies greatly from state to state whether NCLB has put a damper on bilingual education programs, because state policies differ so much. For example, in states that offer some tests in students' native languages--which is permitted by the federal law--bilingual programs are having an easier time surviving than in states that administer their tests only in English. In Texas, which requires bilingual education at the elementary grades and provides math and reading tests in Spanish for those grades, bilingual education is growing. In Arizona and California, on the other hand, which passed ballot initiatives to curtail bilingual education and require testing to be in English, bilingual education has dramatically declined.

Here's what I learned about bilingual education in a sample of states.

Arizona: In the 1999-2000 school year--prior to passage of a ballot initiative against bilingual education--31 percent of ELLs were in bilingual education; in 2006, 2 percent of the state's 135,000 ELLs were in such programs.

California: Twenty-nine percent of ELLs were in bilingual education just prior to passage in 1998 of a ballot initiative to curb the method. The percentage then soon dropped to 12 percent. In 2006, 6 percent of California's 1.6 million ELLs were in bilingual education.

Illinois: In this state that requires bilingual education, 76 percent of ELLs were in such programs in 2001; in 2006, the percentage was 78 percent.

New Jersey: Sixty-six percent of the state's ELLs were in bilingual education in the 2002-2003 school year; in the 2005-2006 school year, the percentage was 64 percent. Bilingual education is required in New Jersey.

New York: Forty-five percent of the state's ELLs are in bilingual education this school year. New York doesn't have a comparable figure for the school year before passage of NCLB, but state officials believe the proportion of students in bilingual education has stayed about the same for many years. The state requires bilingual education.

Texas: The percentage of the state's ELLs in bilingual education has grown from 51 percent to 54 percent since the 2001-2002 school year. Texas has 732,000 English-language learners.

So what's the case nationwide? The only data I could find were released in 2003 and show that from 1993 to 2003, the proportion of English-language learners receiving "some" or "significant" native-language instruction declined to 29 percent from 53 percent. (Read the study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, here. "Volume I: Research Report" cites the national figures.) Thus, in the years leading up to passage of NCLB, bilingual education was decreasing in popularity.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The National Council of La Raza and more than 100 other advocacy and education organizations have sent a letter to President Bush expressing "deep concern" over how workplace raids by immigration authorities have been conducted--and how they could negatively affect the children of undocumented workers who are rounded up in the raids. The May 7 letter notes that 3.1 million children who are U.S. citizens have at least one undocumented parent. A copy of the letter was also sent to Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Here's an excerpt: "In the aftermath of the raids, churches, schools, and social service agencies have scrambled to determine which workers have children, assess which children must be picked up from day care and school, find caregivers for the children, and provide basic health and nutrition services."

The letter argues that one way to take the needs of these children into account is to fix "the broken immigration system that separates them from their parents." The same sentiment was expressed at immigrant-rights rallies in Los Angeles and elsewhere on May 1.

The April issue of Rural Migration News tells about what it calls "the largest-ever workplace raid" conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of six Swift plants in December.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I found it refreshing to read in the Carnegie Reporter, a magazine of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, an article about educating immigrant students that didn't mention the No Child Left Behind Act.

The article makes a case for why it still makes sense to provide a free K-12 education for undocumented immigrant students. It relays the context in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe that schools were obliged to educate such students. Not doing so, the court said, would promote "the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime." The article also says that some Americans are now questioning whether the court made the right decision.

What I found particularly interesting is an update about what happened to four children from a Mexican family with the surname Lopez who were plaintiffs. During the time of the court case, they were living in the country illegally, and the Tyler Independent School District in Texas wanted to charge their parents $1,000 annually per child to attend school. U.S. District Court Judge William Wayne Justice ruled that the children should be provided with an education. A federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his decision.

Two of the four Lopez children who were part of the case now are citizens, and the other two have green cards, according to the article. Three of these four children talked to the Carnegie Reporter. They all graduated from high school and say their education gave them the tools to do well in the U.S. workplace. They now have families of their own and own their own homes. One is a shipping foreman at a grocery store, another works at a bank, and a third worked as a customer-service representative but is currently a stay-at-home mom.

After hearing about Plyer v. Doe for all these years, it's neat to know more about the people behind the court case.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A report released by EdSource today could provide leverage for adminstrators who are trying to get teachers to buy into the idea that it's worth their time to examine student test data and use it to make decisions about their teaching. (I can already hear the groans of teachers who worry about losing their creative spirit.)

The study, "Similar English Learner Students, Different Results: Why Do Some Schools Do Better?," marries the results of a survey of California principals and teachers about their practices in educating English-language learners with how well their English-language learners perform in California's accountability system.

Interestingly, the index for how well English-language learners are performing includes those who have been enrolled in California schools for one year or more, as well as former English-learners who have been reclassified as fluent in English. (Aside: some advocates of English-learners propose that the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act should do the same.)

The researchers found that elementary schools where the principal and school district extensively used test data to improve instruction and student learning had higher achievement of English-learners in the state's accountability system. It also helped if the school's curriculum and instruction were "coherent" and aligned with state standards, according to the study.

Here are a few reasons you should pay attention to this study: it was conducted by a team that includes some very respected people in the field, such as Kenji Hakuta from Stanford University; it's a study of schools in the state that enrolls the most English-language learners and also has considerable experience with such students; and the sample of school districts, schools, teachers, and principals apparently is unusually large--and representative of schools in California.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A book and a couple of films gave me some insight recently into the challenge that immigrant children face in adjusting emotionally to U.S. culture, which can affect how well they do in school.

The book was A Home on the Field, by Paul Cuadros, who writes about the lives of undocumented youths who were members of the soccer team he formed and coached at Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City, N.C. When the team took a state soccer title, the boys felt, psychologically, that they had something to contribute to their new community. TIME Magazine ran an excerpt of the book in August 2006.

In my reporting for a story published this week in Education Week, I was pleased to learn that the Jordan-Matthews high school and a middle school in Siler City--both part of the Chatham County school district--are partners in a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for school-based mental health care services tailored to immigrant families. The grant will pay for the salary of a bilingual social worker to work at those two schools and for diversity training for the school district's staff and teachers to better understand Latinos. It also will enable a connection between the schools and a mental health care organization that serves Latinos.

It makes sense that educators pay attention to whether children from immigrant families are in a good frame of mind to learn, as well as to whether effective methods are used to teach them.

I also recently watched two documentaries about the adjustment of the "lost boys of Sudan" to the United States. About 3,600 Sudanese youths from the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya were nicknamed the "lost boys of Sudan" when they were resettled in this country six years ago by the U.S. Department of State. (Read an Education Week story about the "lost boys" here.) The youths had survived a war in Sudan and long treks across Africa to find safety. Their experiences are documented in "Lost Boys of Sudan" and "God Grew Tired of Us."

In both films, I was struck by how feelings of loneliness and isolation dogged the Sudanese youths during their adjustment to this country. "Lost Boys of Sudan" chronicles the experience of a boy named Peter in a Kansas high school and shows that a little care by a few individuals in that school went a long way in helping him to find his way. A classmate, for example, tells Peter soon after he arrives at the school that, since he doesn't know anyone there, he's welcome to sit with her and her friends at lunch.

I identified with Peter and his journey because I realize that it's not just immigrants who long for more of a sense of community--and focus on people--in this society. I do, too.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a tricky matter for educators to determine if an English-language learner has only a language issue that affects learning--or a disability. In last week's Education Week, I wrote about Missouri's efforts to help educators improve how they evaluate English-language learners for special education, an area where Missouri has a problem with underrepresentation. Ten percent of English-language learners nationwide receive special education, compared with 13 percent of all children, according to data from the 2004-2005 school year collected by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.

I came across a document in my reporting that I thought could serve as a checklist for schools on whether they're paying sufficient attention to this issue. It's an agreement that the Florence Unified School District in Arizona signed with the Office for Civil Rights on March 22 that includes several pages of procedures for how the district will evaluate--and re-evaluate--its English-language learners for special education.

After someone filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights claiming the school district had an overrepresentation of English-language learners in special education, school district officials agreed to voluntarily work with that office without an investigation. (See March 29 local news account.) Florence Unified officials declined to comment on whether the procedures represented a big change in their practices.

I asked Catherine Collier, who runs Crosscultural Developmental Education Services and has worked to help school districts comply with the Office for Civil Rights on this issue, to read the document and tell me if the procedures it spells out are on target.

"Yes, if districts followed all these they would be in good shape in terms of compliance, and if they really implemented all of these, ELL students would be in good shape academically," she wrote in an e-mail message. "HOWEVER," she added in capital letters, "there are all sorts of ways districts may 'comply' but really just do superficial adjustments." She indicated that her work is about helping school districts to genuinely serve ELLs well.

Ms. Collier also quipped in her e-mail that the agreement the Office for Civil Rights made with Florence schools "shows that OCR is not entirely hiding out under the current administration."

Readers: Do you think that the Office for Civil Rights has been "hiding out" during the Bush administration?

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)