Dive Brief:

• A new survey from Education Week reports that two-thirds of school administrators are concerned about the quality of education for English language learners in their schools. 
• This is partially due to more rigorous standards that have been adopted by schools across subjects, in order to align with Common Core.
• Teacher training is also to blame, with many educators ill-prepared to teach ELL students.

Dive Insight:

A new book, "Navigating the Common Core With English Language Learners," by Larry Ferlazzo and his co-author Katie Hull Sypnieski, argues three overarching concepts in Common Core-aligned writing standards — argument, informative/explanatory and narrative — should be stressed for ELL learners instead of details like perfect grammar. This may be something to consider for those school districts where teacher training methods are being reconsidered. ELL learners need to be able to learn from models more than non-ELL learners when it comes to writing — especially before undertaking independent writing projects, according the book's authors.

Since the student population in the U.S. is estimated to consist of a majority of students of color by the year 2020, school districts may want to consider how best to engage parents that might be non-native English speakers. Doing so is necessary to address achievement gaps before they begin to widen.

To address the inequity faced by impoverished immigrant children who grow up hearing 30 million fewer spoken words than their more affluent peers, the Napa County Office of Education piloted a multilingual interactive digital platform called Footsteps2Brilliance with preschool students, seeing English language skills increase by 250%. That platform works on various tech devices, including smartphones. The district also partnered with a nonprofit to fund distribution of the platform to all parents of pre-school age students.

Recommended Reading

NPR: Survey Raises Concerns About Non-English Speaking Students