The United States needs strong collaboration among adult educators and all social service agencies that support the linguistic, economic and civic integration of refugees and immigrants. Such collaboration can make possible holistic support required to create linkages between English language education and other non-educational support services.…

The year 2017 saw the publication of one of the strongest endorsements of language education on record: "America's Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century" (henceforth "America's Languages"). Commissioned by a bipartisan group of members of Congress and authored by the Commission on Language Learning of…

"Remedial Trap." "Bridge to Nowhere." "Completion Divide." Such language used to describe the field of Developmental Education (DE), especially by those outside the field, is undeniably deficit oriented. In this manuscript, we initiate a dialog that critiques such portrayals of DE, particularly those that appear in…

Although there has been a great deal of debate about the effectiveness of charter schools in the research literature, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to English language learners (ELLs) in charter schools. Moreover, the charter school research has predominantly focused on whether or not charter schools are effective rather than…

As president of the California Council on Teacher Education from 1994-1996, teacher educator Grace Grant reflects on the first conference she attended of the then California Council on the Education of Teachers in 1976 at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. The keynote speaker was Gary Fenstermacher, the then-director of teacher…

As teachers, schools and school leaders work to better prepare California's culturally and linguistically diverse students, methods for doing so vary widely. One approach prioritizes safe spaces, welcoming environments, well-structured routines--school and classroom culture features essential for students' well-being. A second key priority, often…

In this article, I critique a component of the highly structured Open Court Reading curriculum designed to teach elementary children "inquiry and higher-order thinking" skills. The intended outcome of this component is, I argue, the production of critically literate and informed consumers of information. However, both the critical…

This position paper observes the impact of "Proposition 227", California's "English for the Children" initiative, on the professional development of teachers of English Learners. It draws on information I obtained while working as an evaluator of the California Teacher Institutes (CTIs), a network of institutes aimed to enhance…

The move of the University of Southern California to eliminate its German department in order to shift resources to Asian languages has sparked a debate about the relative importance of learning European languages. College administrators seem to assume that global shifts in economic power call for changes in the distribution of their budget for…

This document is an extension of "Resource Needs for California's English Learners" and is the result of deliberations from several informal meetings and two formal meetings of major stakeholders in the area of English Learner (EL) education. Its intent is to suggest a series of policy options, based on data examined in the initial…

We argue here that the combination of U.S. federal education policy as embodied in the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" with the passage of a California state initiative that required that "nearly all classroom instruction [be] in English...for a period not normally intended to exceed one year" in 1998 created a "perfect…

Discusses cases of indigenous/immigrant languages that are in danger of disappearing because they are not being transmitted to the next generation, including languages of South America, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Wales, New Zealand, Turkey, and native languages of California. Such cases provide evidence that language policy and education serve…

Vocabulary acquisition is a critical component of academic language. This aspect of the school curriculum seems to be more difficult for language learners to acquire. This study therefore examines the language arts conceptual framework and the instructional activities for vocabulary development in a second grade mixed classroom with a view to…

Describes the origin and rationale of the California Foreign Language Project, a professional development project designed to improve and expand foreign language teaching in California while promoting access and equity within educational institutions for every student. (Author/VWL)

Discusses attempts in the United States to make English the only official language and the motives underlying these activities. The article argues that the present mood of nativism poses a serious threat to English-as-a-Second-Language professionals and discusses the role of U.S. English, Inc., the major organization advocating language…