Lessons Learned from Earlier Standards Movements
Hi everyone! Diane is at NABE 2013 this calendar week, so I'm filling in for our weekly mail service.
With so much news about the Common Cadre Land Standards coming across the wires each day, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to feel overwhelmed! I was recently reminded, notwithstanding, of my video interview last year with Dr. Joanne Urrutia of the U.S. Department of Education's Function of English Linguistic communication Conquering (OELA), which offers some hope regarding the CCSS in the midst of information overload. (The interview is also available on YouTube.)
In the interview, Dr. Urrutia provides some helpful context well-nigh how policy decisions affect English linguistic communication learners (ELLs). Equally part of the interview playlist titled "New Standards," she speaks virtually the importance of college- and career-ready standards for ELLs, clarifying the Department's part in the implementation of these new standards. For example, she makes an of import distinction between country and federal responsibilities with regards to language proficiency standards, noting that while states are responsible for aligning their English language proficiency standards to college- and career-set standards, the role of the U.S. Department of Pedagogy is to help guide the process instead by looking at the large picture.
She says, "The Department can provide resources in the area of research and inquire experts to take a expect at language proficiency standards and help in determining, 'Look, what are the skills that are needed so that English language learners are gear up and are able to admission this rigorous bookish content that is function of the college- and career-standards?'" It will be interesting to meet what management that federal guidance goes in as more than states grapple with alignment issues and as educators dig in to what the standards will look like in the classroom.
Experiences in Miami
Dr. Urrutia besides shares ii highlights from her 35 years' feel as an educator and administrator in the Miami-Dade County School District. The first was edifice a dual-linguistic communication programme at a Title I school serving a largely African-American community, Laura Park Elementary, which is a story worth hearing!
The second was her feel, as the district's administrative director for the Segmentation of Bilingual Educational activity and World Languages, with a new ELL standards initiative in Miami for elementary, middle, and high schoolhouse students several years ago. As function of that initiative, Miami educators were told by the state that they needed to provide ELLs with admission to form-level teaching. She remembered that the going was tough and that it took a lot of hard piece of work over a couple of years to make the shifts needed – sound familiar? Eventually, however, the new system began to piece of work and some large lessons emerged from the procedure, such as the realization that this was the kickoff time the ESL teachers had an opportunity to really get to know the Language Arts curriculum that the kids were supposed to be mastering outside of the ESL classroom.
In addition, since Spanish-language instruction is a fixture in Miami schools, the district mapped Spanish Language Arts standards with the ELA standards so that ELLs were getting a double dose of Language Arts skills in English and Spanish – perhaps an idea for those who wonder what the CCSS means for bilingual education models. (For information on districts currently working on adapting the CCSS for dual-language programs, see this October 2012 blog post from Lesli Maxwell at Education Week.)
Food for Thought
In the midst of the fence and uncertainty surrounding CCSS, it is helpful to hear from someone who has gone through the growing pains of this kind of change and has come out of information technology in a better place. Information technology's important to learn from people who take experienced something similar before, like Dr. Urritia.
It is also reassuring to learn from those who are experiencing the CCSS now, such equally Albuquerque teacher Miriam Martinez, also a member of the American Federation of Teachers' ELL Educator Cadre and a participant in our CCSS work in Albuquerque. In a journal entry written for our CCSS projection, she notes that while she's been around the cake a few times when it comes to new standards, she'southward hopeful that the CCSS volition have a more than positive outcome than previous standards movements.
What virtually you? Have you learned lessons from earlier standards initiatives or curriculum changes that tin exist applied now to the Common Core? We'd dear to hear your comments!
Source: https://www.colorincolorado.org/blog/lessons-learned-earlier-standards-movements
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