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Giving English language learners the content they deserve
Schools mobilize to give all students 'content rich' learning environments
There’s more than a little excitement in Amber Prentice’s voice as she discusses the students she works with at Battle Creek Middle School, one of many schools in St. Paul, Minn., that has welcomed many new students from South America and Southeast Asia in recent years. Prentice, a science and social studies teacher who works primarily with students just learning English, says that English language learners (ELLs) now constitute about 40 percent of the student population in St. Paul, a district that has risen to the challenge and made great strides when it comes to offering ELLs experience with rich content that keeps them thinking, learning and achieving.
All students, even those who aren’t learning a new language, “enjoy rich content and they’re motivated to learn” when it’s part of their daily school life, explains Prentice, who attended the AFT’s QuEST (Quality Educational Standards in Teaching) conference in Washington, D.C., last summer in part to learn more about recent developments in ELL education. She says she was delighted to see how the message of content-rich instruction has taken hold in the community.
One QuEST workshop, “Helping English Language Learners in Middle and High Schools Succeed and Graduate,” offered research showing that ELL instruction can adopt classroom routines, cooperative strategies and materials that will help plug in content rather than pull out students. Academic excellence means engaging ELL students in tasks that are high challenge and high support, Leslie Hamburger, associate director of WestEd, told the crowd. And she stressed that academic challenge is never “optional” for any group of students; “‘I wasn’t challenged’ is a main reason” cited in surveys of ELL students who ultimately leave school, she said.
Hamburger and Kristina Robertson, ELL program specialist for the Minneapolis Public Schools, helped lead workshop participants through several classrooms strategies and approaches that support ELL academic rigor. Much of this information also is available at the Colorín Colorado Web site, www.ColorinColorado.org, an online resource for ELL educators that the AFT co-produces with PBS station WETA.
The information presented at QuEST left Prentice excited and confident for the start of the new school year in St. Paul. “The research says we needed to increase content, and we’re rising to the challenge,” she says.
Legislation to fix anti-worker ruling
RESPECT Act picks up sponsors, but more are needed to make it law
A bill, which would reverse a decision that otherwise would cause millions of workers to lose their union rights, is gaining ground in Congress, but it needs more sponsors if it is to become law.
The Re-Empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradeworkers (RESPECT) Act, introduced in March 2007, would amend the definition of “supervisor” in the National Labor Relations Act. The amendment is necessary because of a 2006 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board.
The ruling on a group of cases, known as Kentucky River, says employers can label workers as supervisors if they assign another employee to a particular location, to work at a certain time or to perform a significant task. Workers also could be deemed supervisors if they are held accountable for the tasks they assign.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the ruling could potentially affect more than 8 million workers in every industry. One of the hardest-hit professions would be nursing, with an estimated 843,000 registered nurses at risk of losing their right to join a union.
The bill would amend the definition of supervisor under the NLRA by deleting the terms “assign” and “responsibility to direct”—the terms the labor board used to justify its rulings. Under the new bill, an employee would have to spend the majority of his or her day in a supervisory capacity to be classified as a supervisor.
The bill already has more than 100 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and more than 20 in the Senate, but it needs more. To send a letter to your representative and senators asking for their support on this important legislation, visit the AFT’s Legislative Action Center at www.unionvoice.org/campaign/KYRiver101106.
The AFT Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Conference will be held at the Loews New Orleans Hotel, Oct. 26-28. This year’s conference promises to explore issues such as the healthcare funding crisis, mobilizing for the 2008 elections, and the growing economic and education disparities that affect our communities.
The conference theme is “Rebuilding the Labor Movement Through Civil, Human and Women’s Rights.” Workshops will cover a wide range of topics, including the resegregation of schools, HIV/AIDS awareness, the war on workers’ rights, and community coalition building.
Conference participants also can see the realities of New Orleans post-Katrina on a tour of the city’s Ninth Ward. For more information, call the AFT human rights and community relations department at 202/879-4434 or visit www.aft.org/news/2007/hrights_conf.htm.
