Recent scholarship reveals how English can be disproportionately privileged in dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programming (Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017; Valdés, 1997). Through a program designed to serve Brazilian (im)migrant populations, this study expands the scope of DLBE research. This study took place in the U.S. state of…

This study documents the notion of unilateral translanguaging--the configuration of translanguaging spaces to disproportionately privilege a dominant language or its speakers. We analyze four teachers' translanguaging practices in a Portuguese-English two-way immersion (TWI) program in the United States. Rather than focusing on whether and how…

As the popularity of two-way immersion (TWI) programs increases across the U.S., recent scholarship has drawn attention to inequities in who benefits from these programs and how they are implemented. These findings have drawn the field's attention to the instrumental part played by particular stakeholders in TWI program implementation. While this…

In "Brooklyn Dreams," Sonia Nieto--one of the leading authors and teachers in the field of multicultural education--looks back on her formative experiences as a student, activist, and educator, and shows how they reflect and illuminate the themes of her life's work. Nieto offers a poignant account of her childhood and the complexities of…

Between national and state budget cuts in education and an ever increasing push toward the English Only movement, a rise in dropout rates for Hispanic students is imminent. National data show the percentage of Hispanic students who drop out of high school to be nearly 60% in some states including Michigan, South Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama,…

The Summer 2013 issue of "Voices in Urban Education" presents an interview with Dania Vazquez, founding principal of the Margarita Muñiz Academy, a Boston public high school offering dual-language education in Spanish and English. The first dual-language high school in Massachusetts, this Innovation School opened in the fall of 2012 with…

This article describes three medium-sized districts' responses to the successful passage of an English-only ballot initiative in Massachusetts. Through interviews with bilingual directors and document analysis the study found that programmatic changes as a result of the new law were primarily limited to elementary-level transitional bilingual…

A program for gifted Hispanic children in the Worcester, Massachusetts, public schools is designed to increase participants' exposure to cultural and community resources, encourage creativity and imagination, and foster language and literacy skills. Potential participants are identified by bilingual teachers and by peer, parent, and…

The entrenched nature of affirmative action, immigration, and bilingual education programs shows that ethnic minorities as well as powerful economic interests can benefit from client politics (H. D. Graham, 2002). In recent years, ballot initiatives have pierced the cocoon of legislative support for these policies and overturned them in California…

This report describes four urban elementary schools in Massachusetts that provide integrated two-way bilingual education to linguistic minority and majority students. Properly designed and implemented, two-way bilingual programs offer a language-rich environment with high expectations for every student in a climate of cross-cultural respect.…

Bilingual education and Mark's Meadow Laboratory School involves the use of adult tutors who work with non-English-speaking children within one of two international classrooms. The tutors serve not only as teachers but as psychological supports for children undergoing both linguistic and cultural adjustment. (GC)

The Walsh and Carballo evaluation of the effectiveness of transitional bilingual education programs in five Massachusetts communities, has the following flaws: (1) the sample of school districts studied suffered from "self-selection bias"; (2) the sample does not include a single large, urban school district; (3) the student samples…

This document provides an overview of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), the state's student testing system. MCAS measures the performance of students, schools, and districts by assessing student knowledge of the academic learning standards contained in the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. The purpose of this document is…

This study of the effectiveness of transitional bilingual education (TBE) programs for Hispanic students in five Massachusetts school districts analyzed data on students' personal and educational characteristics (place of birth, socioeconomic status, number of years in TBE, district mobility, attendance, test scores, academic grades, and…

Ways in which an evaluation of bilingual programs could be appropriately conducted were studied, using two transitional bilingual education programs. In Program A, the first language (Spanish) is the initial medium for all instruction with a gradual phasing in of English. Program A is located in a large suburban school system in central…