Colorín Colorado :: Multicultural Education / Diversity / Culturally-Responsive Instruction

Bilingual Education and Latino Civil Rights

by Susan Baker and Kenji Hakuta, Stanford University

Baker, S. and Hakuta, K. (1997). Bilingual education and Latino civil rights. Cambridge, MA: Civil Rights Project Harvard University.

Topics Covered: About ELLs; Access, Equity, and Adequacy; Bilingual Education; Multicultural Education / Diversity / Culturally-Responsive Inst;

Tags: Bilingual Instruction; Bilingualism / Biliteracy; Latino ELL Students;

Target Population: Preschool, Elementary School, Middle School, High School

Research Questions the Report Poses: Descriptive report, no research question

Summary: The article examines the history of civil rights for language minority children and assumptions behind attacks on bilingual education. After an introduction to numbers of ELL and immigrant students in the U.S. and California, the authors describe a brief history of congressional and judiciary decisions to institute and eliminate bilingual education. They cite major research findings from bilingual and English immersion programs.

Policy Recommendations:

English language learners should be assessed and supported in more ways than just in English language development.
Research should be sensitive to local goals, resources, and populations.

Link to Project Homepage and Full Report

Hidden in Plain View: An Overview of the Needs of Asian American Students in the Public School System

by The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF)

The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (2004, May). Coalition for Asian Hidden in plain view: An overview of the needs of Asian American students in the public school system. New York, NY.

Topics Covered: About ELLs; Multicultural Education / Diversity / Culturally-Responsive Inst;

Tags: Asian ELL Students; Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA;

Target Population: Preschool, Elementary, Middle, High School, Post-Secondary

Research Questions the Report Poses: What difficulties face Asian American students and how might these difficulties perpetuate myths about Asian students?

Summary: The article discusses a number of issues related to Asian-American communities, specifically in New York City. The diversity of the Asian American community leads to stereotyping and mythmaking that adversely affect students and schools. The authors conducted interviews with students, parents, and school staff about the experiences of Asian Americans in schools and the community. The authors make some broad recommendations about: academics, informal education, parent involvement, and community participation.

Findings:
The sheer diversity in ethnicities, languages, cultures, and experiences represented among Asian Americans creates many myths and misunderstandings. The stereotype of the model Asian minority denies the reality that there are struggling and undeserved students. Emotional and academic needs of Asian American students are easily overlooked.

Policy Recommendations:

School and regional staff, from superintendents to teachers to security officers, need to be prepared to work with the Asian American community. Training on the diversity in the Asian American community, cultural influences, and barriers to accessing services is imperative.

Schools, regional divisions and central offices must ensure proper collection of demographic data of all students and make disaggregated data on communities available. Only with a proper understanding of the needs of Asian American students can proper services and programs be planned.

Schools must ensure language needs of students and parents are properly assessed. It is necessary that special attention is paid to dialects and written languages. To assist in efficient access to translation and interpretation services, a centralized resource bank of such services must be developed.
The Department of Education must create additional dual language programs in other Asian languages. Not only do dual language programs foster fluency in English, but in another language as well.

Parents must be informed of the new curriculum, introduced to different strategies of teaching, and directed to where they can find resources to help support their children in their learning.

Promote Positive Identity Formation and Inclusiveness

Schools need to take a proactive approach to promoting positive identity formation that includes a healthy ethnic identity
Schools need to offer opportunities for students to interact and learn from each other. This might include mentoring programs, planning of heritage months and other efforts to foster inclusiveness.
All schools, but especially those with large Asian American populations, need to be inclusive of Asian Americans in their curriculum such as placing Asian American authors on reading lists, taking excerpts from Asian American works to be used in lessons, and having books on Asian Americans and books written by Asian Americans on the shelves in school libraries.

Schools should start anti-bullying programs in the elementary school grades and offer peer mediation programs for higher grades.

EDUCATE AND ENGAGE PARENTS

All schools must assess how welcoming and accessible schools are to parents, especially immigrant and limited English proficient parents.
All schools should have orientation for new parents and teach them about ways to be involved.

IMPROVE THE USE OF PARENT COORDINATORS

The Department of education needs to establish standards for the allocation of an appropriate number of parent coordinators per school that is based on workload (the ratio between the number of families to every one parent coordinator) as well as language and cultural needs.

Promote Partnerships With Community Based Organizations.

Asian American community based organizations that work with schools with a large Asian American population should be involved in school planning through School Leadership Teams.
Improve collaborative partnerships between schools and community based organizations will result from sharing goals on student performance and maintaining regular communication between schools and organizations.
Private foundations and government agencies need to increase grant opportunities for school and community based organization partnerships.
Schools need to access support and resources from those community based organizations that are knowledgeable of the ethnic communities in their schools.

Link to Resource Page (Full Report Available)

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:

The Coalition of Asian American Children & Families
50 Broad St.
Suite 1701
New York, NY 10004
Phone: 212.809.4675
Fax: 212.785.4601

*Note: To download report, enter your name and email in the log-in screen. Email addresses will not be shared or added to any email lists.

Musical Training Helps Language Processing, Studies Show

by Lisa Trei

Trei, L. Musical Training Helps Language Processing, Studies Show. Stanford Report, 15 November 2005.

Topics Covered: Multicultural Education / Diversity / Culturally-Responsive Inst;

Tags: Comprehension; Phonics; Phonological Awareness;

Target Population: Preschool, Elementary, Middle, High School, Post-Secondary

Research Questions the Report Poses: Does musical training help people detect small differences in word syllables? How does musical training affect the way the brain operates?

Summary:

In what will be music to the ears of arts advocates, researchers for the first time have shown that mastering a musical instrument improves the way the human brain processes parts of spoken language. The findings could bolster efforts to make music as much a part of elementary school education as reading and mathematics.

Findings:

People with significant musical experience found it easier than non-musicians to detect small differences in word syllables; and
Musical training helps the brain work more efficiently in distinguishing differences between rapidly changing sounds that are essential to processing language

Policy Recommendations:
N/A

Go to article

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
n/a

National Literacy Panel's Executive Summary

August, D. and Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Center for Applied Linguistics, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.

Topics Covered: About ELLs; Literacy and Reading / Writing Instruction; Multicultural Education / Diversity / Culturally-Responsive Inst; Parent Outreach;

Tags: Bilingual Instruction; Comprehension; Latino ELL Students; Transfer of Literacy Skills;

Summary:

In 2002, the U.S. Department of Education charged a panel of experts, chaired by Timothy Shanahan, with reviewing and compiling research on literacy attainment for language-minority students.

The panel's report, Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners, identifies factors that support literacy development of language minority students in the classroom. It also discusses various findings on parent involvement and home literacy experiences and offers suggestions for reducing the over-representation of English language learners in special education.

Last year, the Department of Education said the report didn't stand up to peer review and decided not to release the report. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) has released the report's executive summary, written by principal investigator Diane August.

Download Executive Summary (96KB PDF)*
Order copy of full report

Report on the Status of Hispanics in Education: Overcoming a History of Neglect

by National Education Association; Richard Verdugo

Verdugo, Richard R. (2006. "Report on the Status of Hispanics in Education: Overcoming a History of Neglect." National Education Association.

Topics Covered: About ELLs; Access, Equity, and Adequacy; Best Teaching Practices / Professional Development; Multicultural Education / Diversity / Culturally-Responsive Inst;

Tags: Instructional Programs; Latino ELL Students;

Target Population: Preschool; Elementary; Middle; High School; Post-Secondary

Research Questions the Report Poses: What are the issues facing Hispanic students? How can educators, researchers, communities and policy-makers help Hispanic students overcome these barriers?

Summary: Hispanic students often face unique challenges in student achievement. Because of high levels of poverty, limited English language skills, and immigration factors, Hispanic students must overcome socioeconomic, language, cultural and barriers to succeed in school.

Findings:
The report outlines six key issues in the education of the Hispanic population:

Innovative classroom strategies including culturally responsive and technology enriched teaching.
School funding equity
Professional development for teachers
Early education and post-secondary education
The politics of immigration, and migrant education
Educator recruitment and retention

Policy Recommendations:

Analyze barriers that Hispanic students face in gaining access to college
Provide parents with financial information that can be used for students' college education
Improve teacher's education programs. Teachers are not well prepared for teaching Hispanic students, especially Hispanic ELL students.
Reduce class sizes, improve student resources, and student social services
Teachers should be exposed to a curriculum during their university years that teachers them cultural understanding and sensitivity
Work to pass legislation that changes property tax laws and state laws to broaden the school funding base