Today, the Trump administration announced its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) while calling on Congress to overhaul immigration legislation. The program, started during the Obama administration in 2012, has allowed about 800,000 of those who immigrated to the U.S. as children without documentation to work and study in this country. Although the administration claims it is merely correcting an unconstitutional presidential overreach, some commentators see it as a ploy to provoke Congress into action. Whatever the underlying reason for it, the move is deeply unpopular with the American people—a new poll finds that more than 75% of U.S. citizens support the idea of allowing Dreamers to become citizens or to remain as permanent residents.Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who made the announcement, called DACA a “unilateral executive amnesty.” Sessions also called DACA an “open-ended circumvention of immigration laws” and an “unconstitutional exercise of authority” by the Obama administration.
Despite some bipartisan support for the bill, the issue still divides many lawmakers. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., responded to the announcement in a statement saying, “It is my hope that the House and Senate, with the president’s leadership, will be able to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution that includes ensuring that those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country,” while Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, tweeted: “Today’s decision to end #DACA is a moral catastrophe that shakes the American Dream to its core.”
The new poll from Morning Consult and Politico was conducted from August 31st through September 3rd and the sample was comprised of 1,993 registered voters. When asked, “As you may know, Dreamers are young people who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children, often with their parents. Which of the following do you think is the best way to handle Dreamers?”
• 76% of Americans support citizenship (58%) or permanent status (18%) for Dreamers, while only 15% back deportation.
• 84% of Democrats back either citizenship (71%) or permanent status (13%), vs. 8% who favor deportation.
• 74% of Independents back either citizenship (56%) or permanent status (18%), vs. 12% who favor deportation.
• 69% of Republicans back either citizenship (46%) or permanent status (23%), vs. 24% who favor deportation.
• The poll crosstabs reveal that a combined 67% of Trump voters back either citizenship (44%) or permanent status (23%), vs. 26% in favor of deportation.
Response to DACA’s demise was swift:
California state superintendent of public instruction Tom Torlakson denounced the decision and told California public school students and their families that California will keep protecting and supporting them, saying: “Our country made an honest deal with these students—study hard, earn your degree, and you will get a fair chance to compete for college. We should keep deals, not break them. We should support dreams, not defer and destroy them.” He added: “I urge Congress to step up, find a permanent path to citizenship, and protect these immigrants.”
Mario Carrillo, state director of America’s Voice Texas, said, “In his most cowardly decision as president yet, Trump has reneged on his assurances to Dreamers that they had nothing fear, but has instead cowered to Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. The Texas attorney general was the force behind ending the successful program, which has benefited more than 120,000 young Texans. As our state continues to rebuild from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Paxton made the continued attack on immigrants his top priority. That will never be forgotten. He is going to see that our community will not back down. We recommit our fight to protect immigrant youth and their families, who make Texas and our country great.”
Esther Brimmer, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, commented: “Today, we stand with immigration advocates across the country in demanding Congress pass a clean version of the bipartisan Dream Act and give these young men and women a path to citizenship, immediately. We must not shut the doors to the American dream or put people at risk of deportation who have already demonstrated that they contribute to and enrich America. Like the generations of immigrants who came before them, DACA recipients love America and deserve the chance to prosper and thrive.”
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten commented: “President Trump made a promise that he would treat Dreamers with ‘great heart.’ Now, for seemingly political reasons, he is breaking his promise to students, teachers, doctors, nurses and lawyers who took him at his word. This is not the America I know—an America that says one thing to its citizens and then does another. Betraying DACA Dreamers is betraying the values of our diverse and welcoming nation. America will not be stronger or more secure when these young people are torn away from the country they love and call their own. America will be diminished—and the toll will be measured by families ripped apart, people cast into the shadows and into poverty, businesses upended, economies weakened and dreams shattered…As children return to school, many carry with them constant, crippling terror and uncertainty because of their immigration status. Children should be free to learn and live without fear. Inhumane immigration policies deprive them of that freedom.”
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform FAIR, which campaigns to limit immigration, sees the issue differently: “FAIR applauds the decision by President Trump to wind down the DACA program…In our view, DACA was an unconstitutional abuse of executive authority by President Obama…Congress should seize this opportunity to come together and forge these much-needed reforms in our nation’s immigration policy. If the Democrats fail to show up at the negotiating table, it raises the legitimate question of whether DACA is something that the Democrats really want, or if it has merely been used as a convenient political football for fundraising and energizing their base.”
Americans Support Public Education in Diverse Schools
Despite influential campaigns to undermine confidence in public schools, most Americans have faith in their local schools, according to the latest edition of the annual Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK) Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, the defining public opinion survey on American public education for the past 49 years.
The new poll finds that the proportion of Americans who give their community’s public schools an A grade is at its highest in more than 40 years, and 62% of public school parents gave public schools in their own communities an A or B grade, compared with 45% of nonparents. When parents grade their own kids’ schools, the results are even better, with 71% giving them A’s or B’s. This compares with only 24% of Americans giving public schools nationally an A or B (with no difference between parents and all adults), and the report notes: “There’s no contradiction in the gap. Awareness of a few poor schools can diminish the ratings of all schools together, driving down scores nationally while leaving local scores far better.”
The survey also found that 70% of parents, including equal numbers of whites and nonwhites, say they’d prefer to have their child in a racially diverse school, but only a quarter of those who say they’d like their child to attend a racially diverse school would be willing to take on a longer commute to do it.
Despite the current emphasis on vouchers among federal policymakers, the poll found that 52% of Americans oppose using public funds to send students to private school and opposition rises to 61% when the issue is described in more detail.
Contrary to expectations, the survey found that standardized testing was the least important factor in assessing school quality. All other factors, including the availability of extracurricular activities, art and music classes, advanced academic classes, technology and engineering classes, and programs to develop interpersonal skills, were deemed more important.
An overwhelming majority of Americans (87%) strongly support schools providing mental health services and after-school programs (92%). They’re willing to pay for it too – 75% of respondents say schools should ask for more public money to provide these and other such wraparound services.
Making Learning Come to Life
Trish Roffey creates makerspaces to embolden and empower English learners and struggling students
“Ultimately, the outcome of maker education and educational makerspaces leads to determination, independence, and creative problem solving, and an authentic preparation for the real world through simulating real-world challenges. In short, an educational makerspace is less of a classroom and more of a motivational speech without words” (Kurti et al., 2014, p. 11).
Have you ever considered how many parents ask their child the question “What did you do in school today?” to only be answered with “Meh,” “I don’t know,” or “Nothing”? Parents want to know what their children have spent their days learning and are often faced with unenthused responses or no responses at all. This leads to the inevitable concern that their children haven’t learned anything, are struggling, or are unhappy with school. This concern can be increased tenfold when their children are new to learning the language or have special needs. The year 2015 brought about a change in this passive response with the entrance of makerspace in education. Before we all roll our eyes at yet another educational buzzword, makerspace is actually the resurgence of the foundational educational pedagogy of constructivism and is changing the nature of teaching and learning. Now, when the question “What did you do in school today?” is asked, parents are being shown projects that provided the best seven hours of their children’s lives, thanks to the makerspace.
Makerspace is a global trend that is part of the DIY movement.
These spaces started as community centers where the average Joe could meet up with local experts to pursue a passion project or hobby. Imagine a facility with tools and materials to invent, tinker, and construct. This movement has found its way into education over the last year. Libraries and classrooms are being transformed with 3D printers, robots, and bins of recycled materials. What is exciting is that makerspace is more than just a space; it is an educational mindset. A makerspace mindset allows educators to shift away from ready-made knowledge to a classroom environment ripe for exploration, creativity, innovation, and collaboration, with hands-on materials and real-world problems (Donaldson, 2014; Papert and Harel, 1991; Schön, Ebner, and Kumar, 2014; Schrock, 2014; Hatch, 2013). In short, teachers are changing the way they teach, which is causing students to change the way they learn, and this is a very good thing.
With an ever-growing student population of English language learners (ELLs) in our schools across North America, we need to consider our approach to offering higher-level learning opportunities that also support the development of language and social skills. Often, we can observe students who are missing “foundational” literacy and numeracy being pulled out of the classroom to receive one-on-one instruction for these missing pieces because they “must learn this before they can learn that.” Makerspace is allowing students who are “missing pieces” to still learn, reason, problem solve, and innovate without having to rely on mastery of the English language. My own mindset as an educator had to shift when I began teaching in an inner-city school environment for a group of students that had severe special needs. Our school population was also over 70% ELLs. The opportunity to “pull out” students who struggled was gone when it would have meant pulling out more than half the class. I started to ask myself, if I only relied on teaching the basics, when would they have the chance to shine? I was inspired by the story of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
William Kamkwamba was a 14-year-old boy living in extreme poverty and famine in Malawi in 2002. He was forced to drop out of school and spent much of his time at the local library flipping through magazines and books about electronics. One day, he was inspired to build a windmill for his community as a way to provide electricity and irrigation. Using blue gum trees, bicycle parts, and materials collected in a local scrapyard, William constructed a very rough but very functional windmill that could power a cell phone. He did not have a teacher telling him step by step what he had to do, he was not receiving remediation for the English language, yet he was still learning. William was inspired to solve a problem, he had a reason to learn, and he was able to make his learning come to life. This story challenged me as an educator to provide this kind of learning environment—for all learners, regardless of ability.
My classroom began to shift. When it was time to write a story, we took a break from papers and pencils and instead brought out Dash and Dot robots. Students who would have relied on an adult to read and scribe for them were now learning how to use drag-and-drop blocks of code to program their bots to act out the stories in their minds. They designed costumes, they made cardboard settings, and some of them told the first stories in their school careers. When it was time for math, we used an inexpensive drone to explore distance, speed, angles, and weight as we built devices to deliver necessary medical supplies to war-torn regions, a concept many of my students understood the need for all too well. When it was time for science, we used a Raspberry Pi computer and camera to create a time-lapse security camera to understand the nocturnal habits of our beloved classroom chinchilla.
This mini maker movement started to show me for the first time not what the students could not do, but what they could do. They displayed learning that was previously inconceivable simply because they had never been given the opportunity. This type of learning in our schools is often reserved for the best and the brightest students. Yet after allowing my classroom to become a launch pad for learning, there was a noticeable decrease in classroom misbehavior, students had less anxiety, and there was a dramatic increase in engagement in learning, expressive language, reading ability, and foundational numeracy. Suddenly we were designing websites instead of writing reports for social studies; we hacked our word wall with the Makey Makey so it could talk instead of memorizing flash cards; we built flight simulators out of recycled materials using Google Earth instead of reading about aerodynamics in a textbook.
Throughout all of this, we sought out community experts, we researched blogs, we used tools, we created art, we tested, designed, and improved, we made mistakes, and finally we made learning come to life. This was a passionate group of learners committed to a goal. Some of our students could not read, some had trouble sitting still, some needed a little more help, but all had a chance to shine. These projects turned out to be the greatest year of learning ever, something everyone still talks about. Shouldn’t every student have the chance to learn the same way? By moving makerspaces from our garages and community centers into our schools, we have this chance.
Making is a universal language of learning. This hands-on, physical expression of understanding can allow for both students and parents who are English language learners to see and hold what has been learned. This can be done in any school, with any students, on any budget. My first “makerspace” was a bin of materials from the dollar store and a $35 Raspberry Pi computer. A makerspace is about good teaching and learning, period. Educators do not need to be intimidated by high-tech, expensive facilities.
Educators can start small, with one idea and project, and build momentum from there. The maker movement is a vehicle that will allow schools to be part of the necessary return to constructivist education—a movement that will allow students to be creative, innovative, independent, and technologically literate. It is not an “alternative” way to learn, but what modern learning should really look like (Stager, 2014). For our ELL and struggling students, this movement will help better prepare them for a world where they can be computer programmers, engineers, and inventors far beyond what remedial educational alone could have done. We need to believe they can do it, and we owe it to their future to try.
In the movie Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, there is a moment in which he makes fire—a passionate event in which he was the creator of an epic moment of learning, so much so that he shouted “I made fire” to the heavens. This is the moment we want for our children. We want school to be an opportunity to make fire and love learning so that they come home and cannot stop talking about that moment. The greatest seven hours of their lives. That is an educational makerspace.
Trish Roffey is an emerging technology consultant for Edmonton Catholic Schools in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In this role, Trish specializes in supporting teachers and students to explore makerspace, assistive technology, coding and robotics, and blended learning. Trish is also an avid maker who is always tinkering on her next project. You can follow Trish on Twitter @MrsRoffey or contact her at Trisha.Roffey@ecsd.net. For more information about educational makerspaces and to explore project ideas mentioned in this story, please visit www.makerspaceforeducation.com.
Support for Russian in Ukraine
Thirty percent of Ukrainians in areas controlled by the Kiev government support granting official status to the Russian language, according to a new survey.
The poll, conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, found that 54.4% of Ukrainians were against Russian becoming an official language and another 15% of the respondents found it difficult to answer the question.
Four years ago, a similar survey found 32.2% of respondents in favor of Russian being official, and in 2016, the figure decreased to 30.3%, the survey noted.
The poll was carried out in July among 1,800 people in various parts of Ukraine with a less than the 2.3-percent margin of error. In war-torn eastern Ukraine, people were surveyed only in areas controlled by Kiev.
In 2014, the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) ruled that the Russian language’s official status in 13 out of 27 of the country’s regions was no longer valid. In January 2017, the Verkhovna Rada passed the “official language” bill which stipulates the sole use of the Ukrainian language in all official communications. According to the bill, the Ukrainian language must be used by government and local authorities, and all educational establishments.
The Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF) grew from the Ukrainian citizens’ movement (Narodny Rukh) in 1992 to pursue the ideas of Rukh activists on developing an independent Ukraine’s state and governance, market economy, and civil society. According to the Policy Association for an Open Society, a Western-leaning network of policy centers, “DIF has acquired a reputation as a highly respected research and education organization, and a credible source of information. DIF’s track record includes more than 200 accomplished research projects, hundreds of analytical publications, and several internet resources.”
Can Putonghua Relieve Poverty?
While Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared war on poverty, and instructed local governments to create a “moderately well-off society” by the beginning of 2021, in time for the centenary of the ruling Communist Party, regional authorities are failing to teach ethnic minority groups enough Putonghua [Modern Standard Mandarin], Zhu Weiqun, said in an article in the state-backed Global Times newspaper.
Efforts to teach minority peoples Putonghua are “not up to scratch” in various places, said Zhu, who is head of the minorities and religions committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body.
Understandably, there has been resistance against the push for linguistic standardization in regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, where Tibetans and Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim minority, consider language integral to their cultural identity.
Beijing denies that promotion of Putonghua damages minority culture, arguing that learning the official language gives minorities greater opportunities for work and education.
Zhu said in the article that communication issues with workers from Xinjiang could cause a “vicious cycle” when companies group the workers together hindering their ability to work with others. Over 70% of the Chinese population speaks Putonghua, but levels of fluency in west China are 20% lower than in the east, with only 40% of people able to speak the official language in some rural areas, Zhu said.
He added that using a standardized form of the language to alleviate poverty, and using poverty alleviation to promote the language “does not only have an economic importance, but also has a deep political importance”.
Hawaiian Language Sets a Good Example
Revitalization efforts for the Hawaiian language are now being used as a model for success for other indigenous language programs. Advocates of endangered languages visited the University of Hawaii at Manoa this month for the fifth annual International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation. A large portion of that conference was the field study He ‘Ōlelo Ola Hilo. The study is hosted each year at UH Hilo in order for international language specialists to learn about the current revitalization efforts in Hawaii for students from preschool to college levels.
This year’s conference had record attendance, according to the college. Most of the attendees were either native themselves or work with endangered languages and came from Australia, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, and various U.S. states.
Attendees visit nearby immersion schools ‘Aha Pūnana Leo and Ke Kula ‘o Nāwahīokalani’ōpu’u and the UH Hilo Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke’elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language. Hawaii first began incorporating complete immersion programs into its curriculum in 1985. “Our K–20 program is in our language, but it’s not only about the language itself—it’s about education through our language,” says Larry Kimura, associate professor of Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, in UH Hilo Stories.
“Linguists have determined that it takes at least three generations to reestablish a language and bring it back to life,” Kimura explains. In order to keep the language alive, he says, it must be included in the home, not only in the school.
In 1896, the state abolished using the Hawaiian language as a medium of education. Almost a century later, in 1986, Pūnana Leo families protested and were successful at getting Hawaiian back into schools.
Now, the hope is that indigenous communities can take what worked in Hawaii and bring the methods of success to their own schools and governments to revitalize indigenous languages across the globe.
References Paraprofessionals
References
1 “Professional Licensing and Certification in the U.S.”, World Education Services webpage, http://www.wes.org/ info/licensing.asp.
2 Michael Sapiro,“What is the Difference Between A Teaching License and Teaching Certification?” Concordia Online Blog, Concordia University (September 3, 2015), https://online.cuw.edu/blog/what-is-the-differencebetween- a-teaching-license-and-a-teachingcertification/.
3 Conor P. Williams, Amaya Garcia, Kaylan Connally, Shayna Cook, and Kim Dancy, Multilingual Paraprofessionals: An Untapped Resource for Supporting American Pluralism (Washington, D.C.: New America, June 2016), https://na-production.s3.amazonaws.com/ documents/DLLWH_ParasBrief6.1.pdf.
4 Jorge P. Osterling and Keith Buchanan, “Tapping a Valuable Source for Prospective ESOL Teachers: Northern Virginia’s Bilingual Paraeducators Career-Ladder School- University Partnership,” Bilingual Research Journal 27, no. 3 (2003): 503–521; Michael Genzuk and Reynaldo Baca, “The Paraeducator-to-Teacher Pipeline: A 5-Year Retrospective on an Innovative Teacher Preparation Program for Latina(os),” Education and Urban Society (November 1998): 73–88; Christine L. Smith, Focus on an Untapped Classroom Resource: Helping Paraprofessionals Become Teachers (Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Education Board, April 2003), http://files.eric.ed.gov/ fulltext/ED477170.pdf; Jorgelina Abbate-Vaughn and Patricia C. Paugh, “The Paraprofessional-to-Teacher Pipeline: Barriers and Accomplishments,” Journal of Developmental Education 33, no.1 (2009): 14–27, http:// files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ887836.pdf; Conor P. Williams, Amaya Garcia, Kaylan Connally, Shayna Cook, and Kim Dancy, Multilingual Paraprofessionals: An Untapped Resource for Supporting American Pluralism (Washington, D.C.: New America, June 2016), https:// na-production.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/ DLLWH_ParasBrief6.1.pdf; Patricia J. Bonner, Maria A. Pacino, and Beverly Hardcastle Stanford, “Transition from Paraprofessionals to Bilingual Teachers: Latino Voices and Experiences in Education,” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 10, no. 3 (2011): 212–225; Ellen M. Rintell and Michelle Pierce, “Becoming Maestra: Latina Paraprofessionals as Teacher Candidates in Bilingual Education,” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 2, no. 1 (2003): 5–14, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.949.1148&rep=rep1&type=pdf; and Kerri J. Wenger, Tawnya Lubbes, Martha Lazo, Isabel Azcarraga, Suzan Sharp, and Gisela Ernst-Slavit, “Hidden Teachers, Invisible Students: Lessons Learned from Exemplary Bilingual Paraprofessionals in Secondary Schools,” Teacher Education Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2004): 89–111, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ795248.pdf.
5 Conor P. Williams, Amaya Garcia, Kaylan Connally, Shayna Cook, and Kim Dancy, Multilingual Paraprofessionals: An Untapped Resource for Supporting American Pluralism (Washington, D.C.: New America, June 2016), https://na-production.s3.amazonaws.com/ documents/DLLWH_ParasBrief6.1.pdf.
6 National Education Association, “Getting Educated: Paraeducators,” http://www.nea.org/home/18605.htm.
7 Laura Goe and Lauren Matlach, Supercharging Student Success: Policy Levers for Helping Paraprofessionals Have a Positive Influence in the Classroom (Washington, D.C.: Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, American Institutes for Research, September 2014), http:// www.gtlcenter.org/sites/default/files/Snapshot_ Paraprofessional.pdf.
8 Charles T. Clotfelter, Steven W. Hemelt, and Helen F. Ladd, Teaching Assistants and Nonteaching Staff: Do They Improve Student Outcomes? CALDER working paper 169 (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, October 2016), http://www.caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/ WP%20169.pdf.
9 Ibid.
10 “Table 204.27,” Digest of Education Statistics 2015 (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016014. pdf.
11 Rachel A. Valentino and Sean F. Reardon, “Effectiveness of Four Instructional Programs Designed to Serve English Language Learners: Variation by Ethnicity and Initial English Proficiency,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 37 (April 2015): 612–637; “Study of Dual- Language Immersion in the Portland Public Schools: Year 4 Briefing” (Washington, D.C.: American Councils for International Education, November 2015), https://res. cloudinary.com/bdy4ger4/image/upload/v1446848442/DLI_Year_4_Summary_Nov2015v3_1_jwny3e.pdf; Ilana M. Umansky and Sean F. Reardon, “Reclassification Patterns Among Latino English Learner Students in Bilingual, Dual Immersion, and English Immersion Classrooms,” American Educational Research Journal 51, no. 5 (October 2014): 879–912.
12 U.S. Department of Education, Teacher Shortage Areas Nationwide Listing 1990–1991 Through 2016–2017 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Postsecondary Education, 2016), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/ pol/tsa.html; Gabriela Uro and Alejandra Barrio, English Language Learners in America’s Great City Schools (Washington, D.C.: Council of the Great City Schools, 2013), 10, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED543305.pdf.
13 U.S. Department of Education, Teacher Shortage Areas Nationwide Listing 1990–1991 Through 2016–2017 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Postsecondary Education, 2016), https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/pol/ tsa.html.
14 The State of Teacher Diversity in American Education (Washington, D.C.: Albert Shanker Institute, September 2015), http://www.shankerinstitute.org/sites/shanker/ files/The%20State%20of%20Teacher%20Diversity%20 (3)_0.pdf; and The State of Racial Diversity in the Educator Workforce (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, July 2016), http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/ eval/highered/racial-diversity/state-racial-diversityworkforce. pdf.
15 Hannah Putman, Michael Hansen, Kate Walsh, and Diana Quintero, High Hopes and Harsh Realities: The Real Challenges to Building a Diverse Workforce (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, August 2016), https:// www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ browncenter_20160818_teacherdiversityreportpr_ hansen.pdf.
16 Kaylan Connally and Kim Dancy, “Paraprofessionals Could Help Solve Bilingual Teacher Shortages,” EdCentral (blog), New America, April 26, 2016, https://www. newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/bilingualteacher- shortages/; Kaylan Connally and Melissa Tooley, “What Is the Future of Teacher Diversity in U.S. Schools?” New America Weekly, New America, October 1, 2015, https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/94/what-is-thefuture- of-teacher-diversity-in-us-schools/.
Spain Honors Ladino in Israel
Spain’s Real Academia Española (RAE), the leading authority on the Spanish language, is to establish a special institute in Israel to preserve Ladino—the Judeo-Spanish language of Jewish communities who thrived in Spain before their expulsion in 1492 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela, in whose name Columbus claimed the New World of the Americas that same year.
Ladino combines old Spanish with elements of Hebrew and other languages, among them Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Aramaic and some of the Balkan languages, depending on where it was spoken in the intervening centuries.
Exiles from Spain, known as Sephardim (the Hebrew word for people of Spain), moved to North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America after their expulsion.
While Ladino is still spoken by small numbers of people all over the world, about 400,000 speakers live in Israel, making it the world’s largest Ladino community.
Darío Villanueva, the academy’s director, said that Judeo-Spanish was “an extraordinarily important cultural and historical phenomenon.”
“The Jews who were expelled in 1492 dispersed around Europe and the Americas, taking with them the Spanish language as it was spoken at the time of their expulsion,” he told the Guardian newspaper.
“All of this has been miraculously preserved over the centuries. There’s literature, folklore, translations of the Bible and even modern newspapers written in Ladino.”
Five years ago, Spain began to offer nationality to the descendants of expelled Jews, in an attempt to compensate for what the Spanish government called an “historical wrong.”
Bilingual Education on the Brink of Return in Boston
The Massachusetts Senate has unanimously approved the LOOK (Language Opportunity for Our Kids) bill that would allow school systems to bring back bilingual education, potentially ending a 15-year-old ban on schools teaching students academic courses in their native language.
The LOOK bill updates MGL Ch 71A English Language Education in Public, allowing all districts to choose high quality alternate language acquisition programs based on the educational and linguistic needs of students, in addition to Sheltered English Immersion.
The bill also:
• Encourages parent involvement by establishing parent advisory councils and providing a mechanism for parents to advocate as a group for a district to adopt a specific language acquisition program (including dual-language programs).
• Directs districts to monitor FLEP and former FLEP students who have exited language acquisition programs.
• Recognizes experienced educators in Language Acquisition Programs by requiring instruction by licensed ESL teachers, as well as directing DESE to establish an educator endorsement for teachers in dual-language programs, and an administrator pathway for directors of Language Acquisition Programs.
• Removes provisions that discourages alternative language acquisition programs, including time limits, the restrictive waiver process, and liability for educators and districts.
• Recognizes the value of bilingualism and biliteracy skills by establishing a state Seal of Biliteracy that districts can award to high school graduates who demonstrate proficiency in two or more languages.
The Senate vote followed passage of a similar bill last month by the House. The next step is for the legislature to reconcile the differences between the two bills (H.3740 and S.2134). Currently, the House bill would loosen current requirements for school systems to seek waivers to the English-only rule, while the Senate version would abolish the waivers and instead give school systems a choice of specific programs, including English immersion and bilingual education.
Massachusetts’s Language Opportunity Coalition has been fundamental in pushing forward both bills. Founded in 2014, coalition members include MATSOL, Massachusetts Association for Bilingual Education (MABE), Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA), and MIRA Coalition. It released the following statement in response to the Senate vote: “The Language Opportunity applauds our state representatives for recognizing the need for school districts to have the flexibility to offer English learner programs that best meet the needs of their students. The early action on the bills by both the House and Senate shows that the leadership and members recognize the importance of supporting our students by improving English learner education in Massachusetts.”
Choosing Schools, and Battles
Daniel Ward refuses to be distracted by efforts to divide supporters of public education
The dogdays of summer have been rudely disturbed by the reaction to teachers’ leader Randi Weingarten’s linking of the federal government’s school privatization policies to segregation. Calls for her resignation as president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and accusations of her being racist have come from all corners—even liberals get up in arms at any perceived threat to school choice. However, this ideological battle over school choice is a distraction—the real story is childhood poverty and what we can do to overcome it.
Weingarten’s exact words were: “This use of privatization, coupled with disinvestment, are only slightly more polite cousins of segregation. We are in the same fight, against the same forces that are keeping the same children from getting the public education they need and deserve. And what better way to pave the path to privatize education than to starve public schools to the breaking point, then criticize their shortcomings, and let the market handle the rest. All in the name of choice.” She went on to explain how school privatization had been used to prevent integration in the South and how the shifting of funds from regular public schools to private and for-profit charters could undermine federal civil rights law. However, her words were seen by many as an assault on parental choice, and by some as an affront to the minority leaders who have worked so hard to improve the educational options for their communities, including dual-language immersion schools.
Charter schools come in many shapes and forms, but they are all public schools. Some of them have been very successful in improving the educational outcomes of communities which lacked opportunities, while others have failed miserably. Despite the many critical reactions, Weingarten was not attacking charter schools per se but the implementation of policies which would “starve public schools to breaking point.”
The real threat to America’s public school system and its promise of a quality education for everyone regardless of race, language, or income level does not come from within the educational sector but from policymakers and their supporters who do not believe there is sufficient return on the investment of taxpayer funds for the education of our children despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Such is this evidence and the underlying support for our public school system that the only way to undermine it is to pit pro-public education factions against each other. Thus, a situation has been created where committed educators, parents, and academics are at loggerheads over the means of reaching the same goal. Both sides want the best education for the most kids at the best price, but like all learning, one-size doesn’t fit all, so supporters of regular public schools and supporters of charter schools need to recognize that and work together to achieve their mutual objectives.
As long as the U.S. continues to have one of the highest child poverty rates among developed countries, the public school system will struggle to be effective. In recent years, government policies have helped drive positive outcomes for children and families. Now, 95% of U.S. children have health care coverage, an historic high; fewer children overall live in poverty, and an all-time high of 83% of students nationally completed high school on time. Some charter schools have succeeded in high-poverty areas and some have failed, but income level remains the largest determining factor in educational outcomes. Education supporters need to overcome their differences over modes of operation and work together to ensure that the progress recently made continues despite the powerful campaign to reverse the very policies responsible for its achievement.
Subscribe for exclusive content
Language Magazine is a monthly print and online publication that provides cutting-edge information for language learners, educators, and professionals around the world.
LanguageMagazine 2023