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Voices in Urban Education
Archives
Educating Newcomers
VUE Number 15, Spring 2007
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
What Do We Mean by "Quality Instruction" for Adolescent English-Language Learners?
By Margarita Calderón
Margarita Calderón is a professor at the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University.
> Author's biography
A program that has been successful in improving adolescents' English skills suggests principles for teaching high school-aged English-language learners.
The nation's secondary schools have become increasingly concerned with the need to reduce dropout rates and improve all students' academic achievement. Closing the academic achievement gap between minority students and White students is also a requirement of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. While this law continues to be debated and its lack of funding has made it highly controversial, NCLB has actually brought more attention to language-minority students. Schools must demonstrate that they are achieving adequate yearly progress with English-language learners (ELLs) in order to avoid sanctions.
This attention to language-minority students has also generated more studies. Surveys conducted by Public Agenda focused on the differences between White students and language-minority students and their parents (Johnson, Arumi & Ott 2006). Their surveys showed repeated and significant disparities between the educational experiences of minority students and their parents compared with those of White students. Minority students were more likely to report widespread academic shortfalls, low standards, and unsettled schools due to lax discipline, causing serious levels of unrest and distraction in their schools. The major concern, however, were the low levels of academic achievement and high dropout rates.
The Need to Change Instruction for Language-Minority Students
Two national panels have recently published extensive reviews of the literature on language-minority students and on ELLs in particular: the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan 2006), and Carnegie Corporation of New York's panel on adolescent English-language learners (Short & Fitzsimmons 2006), on which I served. These reviews revealed the magnitude of the national challenge:
Archives
Educating Newcomers
VUE Number 15, Spring 2007
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
What Do We Mean by "Quality Instruction" for Adolescent English-Language Learners?
By Margarita Calderón
Margarita Calderón is a professor at the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University.
> Author's biography
A program that has been successful in improving adolescents' English skills suggests principles for teaching high school-aged English-language learners.
The nation's secondary schools have become increasingly concerned with the need to reduce dropout rates and improve all students' academic achievement. Closing the academic achievement gap between minority students and White students is also a requirement of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. While this law continues to be debated and its lack of funding has made it highly controversial, NCLB has actually brought more attention to language-minority students. Schools must demonstrate that they are achieving adequate yearly progress with English-language learners (ELLs) in order to avoid sanctions.
This attention to language-minority students has also generated more studies. Surveys conducted by Public Agenda focused on the differences between White students and language-minority students and their parents (Johnson, Arumi & Ott 2006). Their surveys showed repeated and significant disparities between the educational experiences of minority students and their parents compared with those of White students. Minority students were more likely to report widespread academic shortfalls, low standards, and unsettled schools due to lax discipline, causing serious levels of unrest and distraction in their schools. The major concern, however, were the low levels of academic achievement and high dropout rates.
The Need to Change Instruction for Language-Minority Students
Two national panels have recently published extensive reviews of the literature on language-minority students and on ELLs in particular: the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan 2006), and Carnegie Corporation of New York's panel on adolescent English-language learners (Short & Fitzsimmons 2006), on which I served. These reviews revealed the magnitude of the national challenge:
- Seventy percent of all students in the nation entering the fifth and ninth grades in 2005 are reading below grade level (NCES 2005).
- Both dropouts and high school graduates are demonstrating significantly worse reading skills than ten years ago (NCES 2005).
- Eighty-nine percent of Hispanic and 86 percent of African American middle and high school students read below grade level (NCES 2005).
- Only 4 percent of eighth-grade ELLs and 20 percent of students classified as "formerly ELL" scored at the proficient or advanced levels on the reading portion of the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (Short & Fitzsimmons 2006).
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