Advocating for ELLs in Implementing the CCSS

While facilitating an ELL Advocacy Summit hosted past the National Didactics Association (NEA) in Austin, Texas over the by weekend, a participant from California handed me a resource I had not seen before, "Raise Your Voice on Behalf of English Learners: The English Learners and Common Core Advocacy Toolkit." This toolkit was produced by Californians Together, a coalition of parents, educators, and civil rights groups from across the land of California that works to improve quality education for children from nether-served communities.

While some of the information provided in the toolkit is specific to California, it certainly helps inform CCSS conversations that are taking place across the nation. In this post, I'll first share some highlights of the toolkit, and and so I'll leave you with my takeaways. The total toolkit is not bachelor online simply related resources are posted on the Californians Together website, and you tin order a difficult copy of the toolkit for a minimal fee.

In addition, I'd like to mention that one reason this toolkit caught my attention is that I am passionate about advocating for ELLs and have just written a book on this topic, which will be published this fall by Corwin Printing -- stay tuned!

Contents of the ELs and CCSS Advocacy Toolkit

Californians Together was founded in 1998 after the passage of Proposition 227, which effectively eliminated nigh bilingual classes in the state. Californians Together has partnered with many other organizations with a vision to "foster total participation in a democratic society through quality teaching for children and parents from underserved communities."

One of their key activities has been the development of California'south Seal of Biliteracy, an honor that validates, certifies and encourages students to pursue and attain high level mastery of two or more than languages through a Seal granted upon high schoolhouse graduation to all students with such skills. You can learn more about the development of this program from Dr. Laurie Olsen, Executive Manager of Californians Together.

Recently, Californians Together has as well been focused on the Common Core, producing the CCSS advocacy toolkit in collaboration with the California Association for Bilingual Education and National Quango of La Raza. The toolkit is designed to provide talking points to support stakeholders in a variety of roles as they advocate on behalf of English language linguistic communication learners at the local, district, and state levels when it comes to implementing the CCSS. Information most the toolkit was posted to the Californians Together website in February 2013.

The Toolkit contains five components:

• A groundwork paper that presents the opportunities and challenges that the CCSS present for curriculum, instruction, and assessment of ELLs
• Talking points for policy makers at the school and commune level to utilize so that they can articulate the needs of ELLs in dialogues effectually the CCSS
• A "palm carte" that highlights key problems that stakeholders can raise to support the needs of ELLs in whatsoever CCSS conversation
• A Power signal presentation to address the needs of ELLs while implementing the Common Core Standards
• A CD containing the PDFs of all the documents in the kit plus two resource articles

Toolkit Takeaways

This toolkit begins on a positive notation and states that the CCSS support enquiry-based strategies that are essential for ELLs and pose the opportunity to implement "powerful approaches" that take proved difficult in the past. The CCSS call for the increased role  of collaboration and teamwork. The role of language throughout the CCSS sets the stage for more than project- and enquiry-based learning for students every bit well as the integration of the 4Cs called for equally office of 21st century skills – communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and inventiveness.

Yet, the toolkit acknowledges several issues about ELLs that are not addressed in the CCSS. 1 of these is that the CCSS assume all students have a bones level of English language proficiency. In improver, the standards don't address the study of English language as a Second (or Boosted) Language or how ELLs will acquire the foundational English they need to access the CCSS. While the CCSS are divers in terms of developing college and career readiness, they do non address essential elements that ELLs as well as other cultural and linguistic minority students will demand to develop in the 21st century, including developing a sense of identity, empathy, and cultural connections and understanding.

The toolkit posits that the CCSS don't practice enough in terms of focusing on intercultural communication and biliteracy necessary in today'southward global environs. The CCSS must therefore be supplemented with standards and objectives related to language transfer, contrastive analysis, and learning opportunities when students written report in and across 2 languages.

Concerns and Deportment

The toolkit too explicates many concerns, such as English language development (ELD) standards beingness overshadowed, unknown, and unimplemented. To ensure that ELD standards are utilized every bit they are intended, the toolkit advocates for state and professional leadership to provide guidance and monitoring on ELD standards. Californians Together stresses a need for bilingual programs to prefer primary language materials for students when implementing the CCSS likewise as primary language content assessments in mathematics and language arts.

In addition to principal linguistic communication materials, the group states that supplementary materials need to be provided for ELLs that focus on oral and written language. They telephone call for meaningful and well-designed professional development that focuses on such areas as scaffolding and differentiating instruction for ELLs, working with academic text, and developing language beyond the curriculum. A final thought espoused past Californians Together is that the CCSS will require a technology plan to address the digital divide that ELLs often face up.

Call to Action

Many of the toolkit'due south advocacy items are framed effectually biliteracy being a 21st century asset for all students and the development of dual language proficiency as a powerful pathway for ELLs. To that end, they call for stakeholders to "heighten (their) voice" around all teachers of ELLs needing to: (one) back up language development for all students, (ii) change their education, and (3) use strategies called for past the CCSS.

Some advocacy points include the following:

• Teachers need to receive professional development on ELLs and the CCSS
• Policy frameworks that result in narrowing the curriculum and the over-use of remediation will demand to change so that ELLs receive the total bookish curriculum in lodge to develop their language.
• Pre-service likewise equally in-service professional development will need to address strategies for providing ELLs access to the core content
• Policymakers at the land and education leadership level will demand to provide guidance calling for research-based ELL program models including bilingual alternative options that build the pathway toward bookish language
• ELD standards should be rolled out with a strategy that informs educators of the content of the standards and implications of those standards for programs, curriculum, and teaching.

Finally, the toolkit lists iii questions for ELL advocates to enquire during school and commune conversations:

1. What kind of guidance, support and resource will be available to help teachers unpack and integrate each standard to empathize the linguistic communication demands and to translate the linguistic implications of the CCSS for instructing ELLs?
2. What kind of professional development volition our teachers get in how to support ELLs to engage with the kind of complex text and language called for in the CCSS?
3. How before long will we exist receiving information, professional person development, and support regarding the (CA) ELD standards aligned to the CCSS?

How are you advocating on behalf of ELLs during the implementation of the CCSS in your school or district? What strategies accept been effective for you?

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Source: https://www.colorincolorado.org/blog/advocating-ells-implementing-ccss

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