Learning the Language

Leaders of the Los Angeles Unified School District would like to see the No Child Left Behind Act reauthorized so that money distributed to states for language-acquisition programs can be used for early-childhood education.

That's one message that David L. Brewer III, who has been superintendent of the school system for nearly a year, and several other district officials took to Capitol Hill this week. Such a provision is not in the "discussion draft" of the House Education and Labor Committee. I heard the school district officials' views when they stopped by Education Week's offices this morning to talk with editors and reporters.

Yolie Flores Aguilar, a board member for the school system, noted that while the No Child Left Behind Act considers English-language learners to be a "subgroup" for accountability purposes, it's an understatement to call them that in Los Angeles because the school system has so many ELLs. (As of this summer, 270,000 of the school district's 701,000 students were English-language learners.) In some of the Los Angeles schools that Ms. Flores Aguilar represents, 75 percent of kindergartners are ELLs, she said. Hence LAUSD wants to be able to use funds from Title III, the section of NCLB authorizing money for ELLs, to start teaching English to some of these children before they get to kindergarten.

Six percent of ELLs in the Los Angeles district, by the way, are taught through bilingual education, which is a higher percentage than in most California school districts. When I asked Mr. Brewer if he favors or opposes bilingual education, he said he hadn't taken a position either way but believes that all U.S. students should know at least two languages. He and the other officials accompanying him said they support the provision in the "discussion draft" for a revised NCLB Act that would require states to create tests for ELLs in their native languages. (More on that, here.)

Mr. Brewer also mentioned that the district's widespread use of the Open Court reading series has not helped ELLs to get the language skills they need, and he plans to have it "modified." He didn't give particulars, however, on how that would happen. (Click here for Education Week article on Open Court in Los Angeles.)

For more about ELLs in Los Angeles schools, see my post, "Los Angeles Stops Using Math Skills as Criteria for English Fluency."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a good time for educators and experts in the field to debate what kinds of alternative assessments for English-language learners work best, since assessment is dominating discussions about reauthorization of provisions for such students in the No Child Left Behind Act.

Don Soifer, the executive vice president of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington, Va., has been trying to get the word out that the institute opposes the use of portfolio assessments for ELLs for accountability purposes. Portfolio tests base test scores on samples of student work.

The institute issued a 10-page report—writer Robert Holland's review of research on portfolio assessments—this month that concludes portfolio assessments for use under the No Child Left Behind Act are a bad idea. The institute has also posted an "issue brief" on the topic on its Web site. The report and issue brief cite a couple of research panels that examined portfolio tests in Vermont and Tennessee and found them to be lacking. The assessments didn't yield comparable data to other tests and were inconsistently implemented by teachers, according to the Lexington Institute's summary of the panels' findings.

But the Think Tank Review Project of the University of Arizona blasted the Lexington Institute's 10-page report. Representing the project, William J. Mathis, an adjunct associate professor of school finance at the University of Vermont, wrote that the report "is more akin to a political document than a research report." Mr. Mathis also contended that "selective use of research suggests the author either intentionally slanted the evidence or was unacceptably cursory in his analysis."

I asked Mr. Soifer to respond, and here are excerpts of his comments:

"I wasn't surprised that the 'Think Tank Review Project' targeted this paper. Once again, every single paper they chose to critique addressed a topic counter to the National Education Association's legislative agenda. Also, once again, their list of targets reads like a Who's Who of the nation's top free market-oriented education reform organizations and authors. And, as Professor Mathis' critique mentions, the project is 'indirectly' funded by the NEA. ..."

"Mr. Mathis seems to have a lot to say about Holland's methodology. But he has absolutely nothing to say about the highly controversial methodologies of the Center for Education Policy in the research he has chosen to cite to support his assertions. Their work, after all, allies much more closely with that of the National Education Association and the Think Tank Review Project."

Nevertheless, Mr. Soifer isn't the only person skeptical about whether portfolio assessments can work well for English-language learners. Jamal Abedi, a professor of education at the University of California, Davis, has told me in several interviews that it's difficult to create portfolio assessments that are comparable to regular state tests.

Both Arkansas and Wisconsin were forced by the U.S. Department of Education officials to stop using portfolio tests for English-language learners last school year because federal officials weren't convinced they were valid. But at the same time, North Carolina obtained approval from the Education Department for its unusual "checklist" assessment that includes student portfolios as a component.

Also, in July, federal education officials sent the Virginia Department of Education a letter saying Virginia schools can use a portfolio assessment for ELLs, starting this school year.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, was unable yesterday to get enough support from other lawmakers to include the "DREAM Act" as an amendment to a U.S. Department of Defense authorization bill, according to an e-mail message sent to me by his staff. The amendment would have provided a path to legalization for undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools and attend college or serve in the military for at least two years—and meet certain other criteria.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, however, voiced his support for the DREAM Act on the U.S. Senate floor yesterday and made a commitment to move the measure forward by Nov. 16, according to a transcript of his speech forwarded to me by Sen. Durbin's staff.

When Sen. Durbin first introduced a version of the bill to the U.S. Senate in 2001, he called it the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act.

Here's an excerpt from Mr. Reid's speech: "Many of the children this bill would help are extremely talented and have graduated at the top or near the top of their classes but yet can't get to a state school. What a waste to make it more difficult for them to go to college or prohibit them from getting jobs when they could be making meaningful contributions to the communities and to our country."

As you can tell by the comments on this blog, however, critics of the DREAM Act oppose it because they feel it would provide a form of "amnesty" for undocumented people who are living in this country.

While for years the DREAM Act contained a provision clarifying that states could provide in-state college tuition rates for undocumented students who were eligible to benefit from the act, that provision was dropped in the version of the act filed in the U.S. Senate last week.

In a telephone conversation this morning, Melissa Lazarin, who followed the DREAM Act for years for the National Council of La Raza and now is monitoring it for a children's advocacy organization called First Focus, told me it was "a reasonable compromise" for lawmakers supporting the DREAM Act to drop the in-state tuition provision, to increase the chances of gaining support for the measure. The most important part of the measure is that it would provide a path to legalization for some undocumented students, she said.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

CORRECTION: The following blog item that I posted earlier this afternoon contains an inaccuracy. The "DREAM Act" that Sen. Richard J. Durbin hopes to introduce as an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization bill currently being debated on the U.S. Senate floor doesn't offer in-state college tuition rates for undocumented students. That provision was contained in an earlier version of the amendment but was removed in the version of the amendment filed in the Senate last week.

ORIGINAL BLOG ENTRY
It won't be at least until next week that the "DREAM Act," offering some college tuition help for undocumented students, is put up for a vote in the U.S. Senate, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and the author of the measure. The bill would permit undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools—and meet some other criteria—to get in-state tuition rates at U.S. colleges and universities. (See my earlier post, "The 'DREAM Act' is Reintroduced in Congress.")

A version of this bill—called the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act—was first introduced in 2001. In October 2003, it was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but that's the farthest it's ever gotten in Congress. It has also been part of a couple of comprehensive immigration reform packages introduced in the U.S. Senate, but any of us who follow immigration issues know what happened to those proposals. They were not approved by the full Congress.

Sen. Durbin has put a new twist on his pitch for passage of the DREAM Act, according to a Sept. 20 article in The New York Times. He views the bill as a way to boost military recruitment. It would provide a path to legalization for undocumented students who agree either to serve in the military or attend college for two years. The New York Times article features an undocumented youth who graduated from a U.S. high school in 2005 and would like to be legalized so he can join the military.

A Sept. 20 New York Times editorial urged passage of the bill, but critics say they oppose it because it's a form of "amnesty" for people who are living illegally in the country.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)

Knowing that I'm particularly interested in the education of Native American children as well as children from immigrant families, one of my colleagues here at Education Week drew my attention to the fact that Sven Haakanson, an advocate of the revitalization of the language and culture of Alutiiq people in Alaska, has received a $500,000 award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. (See an article in the Anchorage Daily News about the award.)

Mr. Haakanson is an Alutiiq and a trained anthropologist who educates the public about his people as the executive director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alaska, according to a description of him on the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Web site.

Let me use this opportunity to say that while the mission of this blog is to keep readers up to date on how schools are helping children to learn English, I also am interested in highlighting efforts by educators and others to help children to maintain, revitalize, or improve their native languages.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been here in Rapid City, S.D., most of the week attending an "Indian Education Summit" hosted by the South Dakota Department of Education. Because of the loss of indigenous languages in Indian country, most American Indian children these days speak English as their first language. A local educator here (who declined to tell me his age except to say he's lived "many winters") told me, for example, that he's one of the 2 percent of Lakota people who are fluent in Lakota.

In a breakout session about teaching strategies that take into consideration the culture of Native Americans, Sandra F. Fox, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and a consultant for Native American education based in Albuquerque, recommended that educators plan lessons to help Native American children to develop English skills as well as content. "Most Indian children don't fall in the category of limited-English-proficient, but they are," she said. "That's why their test scores are so low."

She urged teachers who work with Native American students to teach through thematic units because, with that approach, words and phrases relevant to the theme tend to be repeated, which helps children to learn them. Ms. Fox is also an advocate of helping American Indian children to access "Indian literature," books and stories about Native people.

As a former employee for Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, which are now called Bureau of Indian Education schools, Ms. Fox created materials that match Indian literature with themes teachers tend to teach in kindergarten through 3rd grade. She told me she's happy to send those materials to readers of this blog free of charge. Request the materials by contacting her through e-mail at sjfdrf@msn.com.

I'm thinking that non-Native English-language learners would benefit from some of these thematic lessons linked to stories about American Indian people as well. Whenever I meet American Indian people and hear more of their stories, I feel cheated that I didn't learn more about them in school.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Five percent of elementary and secondary school students in the United States both speak a language other than English at home AND "speak English with difficulty," according to a report released recently by the National Center for Education Statistics. (Corrected from earlier version of post.) Those are the children to whom this blog is devoted. I usually call them English-language learners.

The 157-page report, "Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Minorities," says that 20 percent of all school children in the United States are language-minority children, which means they speak a language other than English at home. But only a quarter of those 10.8 million children are reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as speaking English less than "very well." In other words, most children from immigrant families do speak English "very well." See pages 42-44 of the report for information about language-minority students.

The report has some data about American Indian or Alaska Native students that I haven't seen anywhere else. In that group of students, it says 17 percent speak a language other than English at home and 3 percent have difficulty with English.

I noticed that statistic in part because this week I'll be on the road reporting on American Indian students. The blogging this week will be light.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm returning to an issue I mentioned in an earlier post, about whether providing the option for students to take tests for many years in their native languages—and by extension, whether offering bilingual education—results somehow in a slowing down of students' learning of English.

I raised this issue when blogging that U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has objected to a provision in the House Education and Labor Committee's "discussion draft" for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act involving English-language learners. The provision would permit school districts to give ELLs state tests in their native languages for up to five years, with the option of extending that time for two more years on a case-to-case basis. "That's simply too long," Ms. Spellings wrote in a letter to leaders of the committee, and added that the provision would provide an incentive to "slow down" the learning of English rather than speed it up. Now, states can give students tests in their native languages for three years, with an option of extending that time for two additional years.

Some people in the field think extending the amount of time for students to take native-language tests will encourage more school districts to offer bilingual education. The secretary's comment prompts me to speculate that by saying that permitting the use of native-language tests for many years is a disincentive to speed up the learning of English, she is also meaning to imply that providing bilingual education for a long time may "slow down" the learning of English.

I might be wrong to make such an assumption but, regardless, I put the following question to two experts in the field: Is the learning of English by students slowed down by some kinds of bilingual education?

Both researchers agree that English-language learners in grades 1-3 taking bilingual education may not test as well on an English test as ELLs in English-only programs, but by the end of elementary school, the scores on English tests even out.

Here's an excerpt from an answer by Deborah Palmer, an assistant professor of bilingual/bicultural education at the University of Texas, Austin: "Kids in bilingual programs often don't test in English in the early elementary grades as [well as] kids in English-only programs, but those test scores even out by 4th or 5th grade, and bilingual education kids will stay higher over the long term, into middle and high school, and be more successful academically in English and other areas. English-only/English-as-a-second-language instructed kids, meanwhile, tend to lose ground after 3rd grade, and show a flat or even downward trend in test scores in middle and high school. I'm referring here to two large-scale studies: Ramirez et. al. (1992) and Thomas and Collier (2003)."

Donna Christian, the president of the Center for Applied Linguistics, got some input from researchers at her center and responded with the following comments:

"I assume that 'learning of English' includes oral language and literacy (and probably learning of academic content through English). ... It's not accurate to say that the learning of English is slowed down because students are learning two languages at the same time. The students who are becoming bilingual may be on a slightly different trajectory in their English-language development than their English-only peers or their English-language-learner peers who are receiving instruction all in English. ... Our research in two-way immersion programs shows that ELLs who begin the program by 1st grade are quite proficient in oral English by 3rd grade. Literacy skills in English show a lot of variation, some of which relates to the grade level at which literacy instruction begins in the program."

"...In the early years of elementary school (grades K-3), ELL students who learn through two languages may score lower on English-medium tests than students who are instructed only through English; however, by the end of elementary school, ELL students in two-way and developmental programs tend to score at least as high as, and often higher than, ELL students who learn through English only. By the time students are in middle school, ELL students in dual-language programs tend to achieve at higher levels than students who only study through English. So not only do ELL students in dual-language programs achieve as well in English as their ELL peers who study only in English, but unlike most of their peers, they can read, write, and speak in their native language as well."

(Ms. Christian clarifies in her e-mail that she's referring to the kind of bilingual programs that provide instruction in two languages through elementary school. Those programs differ from transitional bilingual education programs, which typically move children into full-time English instruction after a few years of bilingual education.)

A logical follow-up question is: Are the tests in English a good measure of whether ELLs are learning English?

As you can see, it's not so easy to get a simple answer to what may seem like a straightforward question.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

An article of mine published in Digital Directions, a new publication of Education Week, highlights viewpoints from teachers on the benefits and challenges of using technology with English-language learners. For example, some say it's best to highlight the interactive aspects of new technology to help the students practice their language skills.

Please use the comment section on this blog to share any insights you have about using technology with this group of students.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Education Commission of the States has just released an up-to-date list of which states provide in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants enrolled in their state colleges and universities. As of June, the document says, 10 states had passed legislation that enables students living illegally in the country to pay the in-state rates. They are: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington.

I've met some high school guidance counselors or teachers who have told me they sometimes end up trying to help undocumented students research ways to finance a college education. Whether a state offers in-state tuition can make a difference in whether such students, in fact, are able to go to college. Of course, even if they attend college, they are still subject to being deported if their undocumented status is discovered by immigration officials. And landing some kinds of jobs after college, such as being a teacher in public schools, is practically impossible.

At the K-12 level, undocumented children are entitled to a free education. As enforcement of immigration laws increases, some school district officials are clarifying through new policies how school personnel should address the immigration status of students. I wrote about that issue this week in Education Week. You can weigh in on a discussion about school policies concerning undocumented students in the Talkback section of www.edweek.org.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been out of the office for a couple of days, so it's only now that I draw your attention to testimony by various organizations before the House Education and Labor Committee regarding provisions for English-language learners proposed in a "discussion draft" for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act.

Two civil rights groups—the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund—seem to have had the ear of members of Congress shaping reauthorization issues for ELLs all along, so it's not surprising that representatives from those groups testified on Sept. 10 in favor of the draft proposals. See testimony from Peter Zamora, the Washington regional counsel for MALDEF, and Delia Pompa, the vice president of educational programs for National Council of La Raza. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on the support of these groups in an article yesterday.

In his testimony, Mr. Zamora praises how the discussion draft requires states that don't have appropriate assessments for ELLs to set aside 16.5 percent of their state assessment funds to create them. He also voices his support for penalties for states that don't craft valid and reliable assessments for ELLs within two years after NCLB is reauthorized. Ms. Pompa generally supports draft provisions for ELLs in her testimony, but suggests that one proposed provision be changed. Instead of requiring states to create assessments in students' native languages for any group of students with a common language who make up one-tenth of a state's ELL population, she says that states should be required to create native-language assessments for language groups that make up one-tenth of the state's total student population.

Billy Cannaday, the superintendent of public instruction for Virginia, said little about the proposed provisions for ELLs in his testimony except to say that Virginia would like more flexibility in how it assesses such students under the federal education law. Several of Virginia's school districts protested long and hard last school year what they viewed as a lack in flexibility, before giving in to a mandate for how to test ELLs from the U.S. Department of Education.

The people chosen by the committee to testify were much more supportive of the proposed provisions for ELLs than U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has been. (See my earlier post.) Ms. Spellings wrote a letter to the House Education and Labor Committee criticizing draft proposals for ELLs, but hasn't testified before the committee regarding the discussion draft.

I guess we'll see in the final bill who has the most sway with the committee.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been writing a lot more about education policy on this blog than I intended. Part of the reason is that it seems that every time I turn around, someone has new ideas--or more proposals--on how to reauthorize provisions for English-language learners under the No Child Left Behind Act.

So on Friday, at the end of the work week, I took a break and browsed Dave's ESL Cafe, a Web site that's been around longer than the seven years I've been writing about ELLs for Education Week. Dave Sperling launched the site, which evolved from an online "ESL Graffiti Wall," in 1995. It's become really extensive, with all kinds of "stuff for teachers" and "stuff for students."

I was intrigued by this matter-of-fact post on the subject of "how to deal with the plateau problem," submitted by "zhaoguihe:"

"I have studied English for several years, the first few years I can feel improvement every semester, but this year I hardly feel any improvement anymore, do you have some good ways to help me pass the stage."

I think that if educators could answer this question, the education policy issues concerning English-language learners would be much less complex--and I'd probably be out of the blogging business.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The House Labor and Education Committee has released a discussion draft for reauthorizing the Title III section of the No Child Left Behind Act that charges the U.S. Secretary of Education with figuring out a method to identify English-language learners that can be used to reliably distribute funds for such students. Title III is the section of the federal education law that authorizes funding for English-acquisition programs.

A summary of the discussion draft says that requirement is meant to address recommendations contained in a December 2006 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office pointing out problems with the two sources for data permitted for divvying up the funds: estimates by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and data collected by states themselves. Data problems have resulted in yo-yo federal funding in some states, such as Arkansas, according to news reports (See my earlier post, here.)

The draft of Title III also requires states to include some new information in the plans they submit to the U.S. Department of Education. They must show that English-language learners have "access to the full curriculum in a manner that is understandable to and appropriately addresses the linguistic needs of such children." In addition, states must describe how they ensure that all teachers are fluent in English and any other language used for instruction. The draft specifies teachers should have both oral and written fluency but doesn't specify how states should measure that.

The requirement for states to show that teachers are fluent in English is interesting, given that just last week, Arizona evaluators reported that some teachers of ELLs in that state don't have a command of English, according to local newspapers (see earlier post on this, here.)

The House committee discussion draft gives a nod to bilingual education by saying, explicitly, that school districts can use federal funds for "developing instructional programs that promote academic proficiency in more than one language." Those kinds of programs are funded now under NCLB, but the federal education law doesn't spell it out in such detail.

One more thing: Those concerned about terminology may be happy to learn that the draft proposal uses the term "English-language learners," the preferred term in the field for children who are learning English as a new language, rather than "limited-English-proficient students," which is the term currently used in the No Child Left Behind Act. Some educators don't like to use the word "limited" in connection with children because they feel it implies the children are lacking something rather than simply acquiring a new skill.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings doesn't like some of the provisions for English-language learners in a preliminary proposal by leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. (See previous post, here.) In a letter she sent today to Rep. George Miller, a Democrat from California who is chairman of the committee, she criticized the proposal that school districts could let English-language learners take tests in their native language for up to five years, with the option of extending that time by two more years on a case-by-case basis. "That's simply too long; this would allow a 3rd grade student to reach the 10th grade before ever being tested in English," Ms. Spellings wrote.

Let me note that the example Ms. Spellings gives would refer to a 3rd grader who arrived in U.S. schools in 3rd grade, not a 3rd grader who had enrolled in U.S. schools in kindergarten, as I interpret the committee's draft. The time frame starts when a child first begins attending U.S. schools.

Ms. Spellings implies that the proposed provision to extend the time frame for using native-language tests is an incentive to "slow down" the learning of English rather than speed it up. I'm expecting that some bilingual education advocates might address that observation by saying there's nothing wrong with slowing down the learning of English, as long as a child learns English well over the long haul of his or her school career. And if the child receives bilingual education—and can take tests in his or her native language—he or she could well end up having a good command of two languages instead of just English.

In general, Ms. Spellings contends the proposed changes in accountability for students with disabilities and ELLs will exclude more students from accountability and "allow them to be held to lower standards."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Until this week, I'd never heard of Jose-Pablo Fernandez. He's the former director of the Mexican Institute of Houston, and he just won a $10,000 Purpose Prize for his creation of a program to teach computer courses in Spanish to parents at the same schools their children attend. The program, which also encourages parents to get involved in their children's education, is now offered in 110 schools and community centers in Houston, San Antonio, and Beaumont, Texas.

The Purpose Prize is given to people in their "second half of life working on critical social issues," according to a press release naming the prize winners. Mr. Fernandez is one of ten $10,000 prize winners. The giver of the prize, Civic Ventures, a San Francisco-based think tank founded by social entrepreneurs John W. Gardner and Marc Freedman, also named five $100,000 prize winners who were determined to be "social innovators."

I've promised to tell you about innovations in this blog, so I take this opportunity to draw your attention to what Civic Ventures considers to be social innovation--the CCA Alliance program designed by Mr. Fernandez.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

State monitors overseeing Arizona's programs for English-language learners have been out and about visiting classrooms, and they report that some teachers educating such students don't have a command of the language, according to an Aug. 31 article in the Arizona Republic. The evaluators, who based their conclusions on visits to 32 school districts last school year, also said that in a dozen school districts, teachers were sidestepping state law by teaching Spanish in the classroom. (In Arizona, state law permits bilingual education only under very restricted circumstances.)

Note that the article is based on anecdotal information from the state's report, and doesn't include feedback on the report from representatives of teachers' organizations or groups advocating for ELLs in Arizona. The article doesn't give information about how long evaluators spent in individual classrooms.

Tom Horne, Arizona's superintendent of public instruction, told me in a telephone interview in July (see "Arizona Spells Out 'Research-Based' Models for English Immersion" ) that legislation concerning English-language learners passed during the 2005-06 school year enabled him to increase the Arizona Department of Education staff overseeing programs for such students to 26 people, from 6. That's a lot of people, given that some states only have one person who oversees programs for such students. Arizona has about 150,000 ELLs.

Mr. Horne said in July that the staff members would provide technical assistance to school districts on how to improve programs for ELLs. Stay tuned to see if we hear more news from Arizona about that, as well as the monitoring. The Arizona Republic article says the education department has rolled out a new program to help administrators understand changes in state policy for ELLs and also to train teachers "in a new prescriptive curriculum they will be expected to follow."

Readers, do you think that a lack of command of English among teachers who provide instruction for ELLs is a widespread problem?

Update: A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Education told me that state officials are conducting training only in standards for English-language learners, not curriculum. A schedule for this school year gives an overview of the statewide training.

Further Update: The Arizona Republic published an opinion today by the president of the Arizona Education Association, who says the newspaper should investigate "why the Arizona Department of Education is singling out a small group of teachers rather than supporting an investment that will deliver quality education for every child."

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)