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School Specialty Unveils $50,000 School Makeover Sweepstakes

School Specialty is excited to announce the launch of its first-ever $50,000 School Makeover Sweepstakes. The sweepstakes invites eligible individuals to nominate their school and experience the transformational power of reimagined learning spaces. 

One grand prize winner will receive a makeover for their school worth up to $50,000, as well as a $500 School Specialty gift card for themselves. The School Specialty Design Team will collaborate directly with the winning school to bring their makeover to life. Whether it’s a makerspace, media center, STEM lab, or any other learning environment, School Specialty will help the winning school recognize their vision with a modern, engaging space that will meet their specific needs. Ten first prize winners will receive professional development packages for their schools led by School Specialty’s subject-matter experts worth up to $6,500, as well as a $250 gift card for themselves.

“We’re honored to celebrate and support schools across the country, providing them with the opportunity to revitalize their environments and enhance learning outcomes for their students,” said Sue Ann Highland, PhD, national education strategist at School Specialty. “By investing in schools today, we are investing in the future of education and empowering students to reach their full potential.”

Entries for the $50,000 School Makeover Sweepstakes will be open from April 15 through May 31, 2024. Sweepstakes eligibility is open to school employees, volunteers, or family members and caretakers of students. They can simply fill out a form including basic contact information and the name of their school at SchoolSpecialty.com. Individuals may enter the sweeps every day to increase their school’s chance to win! 

No purchase is required to enter. Complete sweepstakes rules are available here.

Project Seeks to Preserve Syriac

Texas A&M University historian Dr. Daniel Schwartz and likeminded colleagues from around the world have been working to help preserve Syriac and its 2,000 years of cultural heritage, creating Syriaca.org, a cyberinfrastructure to link Syriac literature to persons, places, manuscripts, and key concepts.

Last year, they received assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)—a three-year, $350,000 humanities collections and reference resources grant to “preserve and provide access to collections essential to scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities.” The grant marks the team’s third from NEH since 2012.

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic with origins in the first century of the common era that flourished in the Middle East and into Central Asia from the third to ninth centuries before Arabic became the most common language, even in these regions’ Christian communities. In fact, Syriac provides the third-largest collection of source material on the ancient Mediterranean world after Greek and Latin. However, UNESCO once deemed Syriac an endangered minority language due to conflict and persecution displacing indigenous Christian populations in the Middle East.

Though Syriaca.org is mainly a research project interested in furthering knowledge of the ancient and medieval Middle East, it also “serves the expat communities because there’s sizeable Syriac heritage communities in New Jersey, Sweden, and the Netherlands,” said Schwartz, an associate professor in the Department of History within the College of Arts and Sciences. “The numbers of indigenous Christians in the Middle East are dwindling rapidly… To lose that heritage that’s been in the Middle East for 2,000 years is heartbreaking. There’s a real urgent sense to the work that we do to preserve this cultural heritage to make sure it is not forgotten.”

Methods
The team’s NEH grant is supporting three deliverables designed to grow Syriaca. org’s functionality and access. The first is a streamlined and graphically oriented user interface to allow people to use the site and its data more easily. The second is, with assistance from the Center of Digital Humanities Research, to take images and use optical character recognition to render their text into machine-readable text formats, allowing for word searches. The third deliverable is a corpus of Syriac texts in English translation to incorporate hyperlinks and keyword tagging to link texts to other data points within Syriaca.org. This will also facilitate the study and teaching of Syriac in classrooms, with English translations side by side with original texts.

“The work can be incredibly tedious,” Schwartz said. “What keeps me going is hearing from members of the heritage communities who are tremendously appreciative that somebody is doing this work. People in the heritage communities notice and care that somebody is willing to put this work in—to put up Syriac texts online and their English translation—that these expats that are part of the Syriac heritage community have access to their own cultural heritage.”

Revealing Historical Nuances
Syriaca.org shows that sources in Syriac “hold immense value for increasing our historical understanding of the Middle East and Asia” and are “useful in documenting key moments in the development of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions of late antiquity.”

“If you go back a couple of generations of late Roman/early Byzantine historians, Syriac wasn’t very much on the radar screen,” Schwartz said. “Syriac was a latecomer to using digital technology in the study of the field… And what doesn’t make the jump across the digital divide kind of doesn’t exist to the next generation and the next generation after that.”

Scholars, as well as anyone interested, can see sources dating back more than 1,500 years, as the project is free and open under Creative Commons licenses. As such, Syriaca.org boasts several entry points into its vast compendium of knowledge and resources. Users can begin their journey into the Syriac language through a geographical index of relevant places, a biographical dictionary of related persons, a catalog of saints venerated in the Syriac tradition, a handbook of Syriac authors, or a database of hagiographic literature. The online portal has been used by researchers to close gaps in their research and by educators to teach students about Middle Eastern civilizations.

“You dig into this material and see a much more nuanced religious landscape to the Middle East,” Schwartz said. “To bring this to students here and help them understand the way religion plays out in the public sphere in America a little bit better by putting it in dialogue with fifth-century Syria or in seventh-century Byzantium— that’s where I think this is a real value, to better understand the world we live in today.” In 2023, the project was awarded a $15,000 Texas A&M Arts and Humanities Fellows Program grant to expand Syriaca. org with a module that will serve as a controlled vocabulary of keyword concepts tailored to Syriac studies. Partners in the project in addition to Texas A&M include Vanderbilt University, Princeton University, Marquette University, New York University, and the Beth Mardutho Research Library, with affiliations to various institutions. Syriaca.org has received funding support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Alabama, and the International Balzan Prize Foundation.

Reyes Ramirez is at Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences. This article was adapted from that appearing in Texas A&M Today (https://today.tamu.edu/2023/09/21/texas-am-led-humanities-project-seeks-to-preserve-an-endangered-language).

Ensuring Equity in Reading Instruction


Early one summer, my parents moved our family into a 900-square-foot house in the central part of town that would become home for my siblings and me for the next 25 years. We didn’t have much, so it only took a few truckloads to get us from the old apartment building, only a few blocks from one of the area’s busiest US/Mexico border crossings, to our new palace. As a six-year-old boy, I was amazed I now had a yard and sidewalks that were safe for me to use to explore the rest of the block.

My mother, her mother, and several uncles had been teachers in Mexico, so it was almost expected to have conversations about the importance of getting a good education. This led to great anticipation as the first day of school was approaching. Later that summer, a neighbor accompanied my parents and me to school. Since my parents only spoke Spanish, she provided the language support they needed as I was registered for school. The following week, I walked into my first-grade classroom as an English learner, and my journey along this educational pathway began.

It continues today. I can list myriad missteps early in my educational experience, but I chalk it up to the system simply not knowing any better.

Now, we know better. We know the importance of identifying and supporting a student’s cultural, social, emotional, experiential, and linguistic assets. However, are we effectively getting this vital information to teachers and administrators? Better yet, how are we ensuring that future teachers enrolled in teacher preparation programs across the country understand how best to work with English learners when they enter their classrooms?

Before I continue, I also realize that myriad terms are used in districts nationwide to describe students who speak another language at home and are still not proficient in English.

These terms include English learners, multilingual learners, emergent bilinguals, dual language learners, and several others I have probably missed. However, to maintain a level of consistency, I will be using the term English learner to better reflect the definition that appears in the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. The act defines an English learner as any student whose primary language is not English, whose English skills are not sufficient to be successful in the classroom, and who has not yet tested proficient in English. No disrespect is meant to any local educational agency using any term other than English learner.

The Number of English Learners Continues to Grow
According to the latest IES Report on the Condition of Education, in the fall of 2020, approximately five million English learners were attending schools nationwide. This accounted for 10.3% of the total student population.1 Compared to the number of ELs when I began as a bilingual early childhood teacher, the number has more than doubled, from 2.1 million. The critical question is, how have our English learners fared compared to the rest of their peers?

The 2022 NAEP report showed discouraging numbers regarding reading-proficiency levels among our English learners. Only 10% read at or above a proficient level, compared to 37% of their peers.2 These numbers only get worse if one looks back at previous years. In 2002, only 5% reached a proficient level, and two years before that, only 3%. It wasn’t until 2019 that the field reached double-digit numbers, but it remained stagnant at 10% through 2022, as was reported previously. The bottom line is that despite the changes to reading laws promoting scientifically based reading instruction and the added attention to the psychology of reading, our ELs are nowhere near reaching reading proficiency.

Teacher Preparation Is Key
As a former school district administrator, I know the challenges, the expenses, and the amount of time it takes to provide teachers with the knowledge base needed to deliver effective reading instruction they may have missed from their initial teacher preparation experience. I was part of two large state reading initiatives that impacted reading-proficiency scores as teachers were trained in reading science. Several years after their initial rollout, teachers still receive professional development to ensure sustainability. The greatest challenge is that until recently, these states were moving forward with little support from teacher preparation programs. The point here is not to direct blame at one entity or another but to say, let’s continue moving forward.

More and more institutions of higher education have realized that adjustments or a complete retooling of their programs must be made. And for that, I applaud them. A reminder to all is that much work remains to be done to ensure ALL students are successful readers. Compared to where we were several years ago, the future looks much brighter, especially when it comes to the instruction being provided to English learners. A reflective and yet effective two-pronged approach must be taken. Let’s tackle this challenge through continued quality professional development provided by local education agencies, AND, most importantly, institutions of higher learning must continue evolving and ensuring what they are teaching and putting into field practice is reflective of the most current research findings and moves away from misconceived ideology. Let’s look at a couple of points.

First, I believe the field has turned the corner on embracing research and how best to teach our students to read. Educational pedagogy is changing, and the field is moving toward what we know produces proficient readers. Our in-service teachers must continue to receive the necessary professional development that underscores the attributes of language acquisition or oral language development and how it supports the teaching of literacy skills. This is true for all students. However, for English learners, educators must know that language acquisition and literacy development are different constructs that do not develop or evolve simultaneously. Still, they must be addressed explicitly, as they contribute directly to reading proficiency (see Council of the Great City Schools report3).

Second, and most importantly, educator preparation programs (EPPs) across the country are being called upon to step up their game. These programs face a formidable challenge, including retooling syllabi and instructional content. They must become the transformative tool that converts research into practice. Our EPPs must ensure that preservice teachers graduate from their programs knowing how to teach reading and writing and, as stated by the 2006 National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth, learn how to make the necessary “adjustments” that some English learners might need. Rather than calling them necessary adjustments, I see them as necessary scaffolds. In addition, as previously stated, preservice candidates must leave their learning experience knowing there is a difference between language acquisition and literacy development.

Unfortunately, the current situation regarding preparing future teachers of ELs looks dismal. The good news is there’s no other way to go than up. The most current NCTQ analysis states that 69% of the 702 elementary teacher preparation programs provided less than two instructional hours on teaching ELs to read. In addition, 88% of programs did not require any reading instruction practice or fieldwork prior to graduation.4

This lack of knowledge can result in teachers simply not knowing how to address the needs of our ELs or applying teaching methodologies that are ineffective or damaging to these students. However, it is also essential to call out states like Tennessee, Colorado, Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, and others that are significantly ahead of the game or are beginning the process.

I may have suffered from educational naivete when the National Literacy Panel published its report more than 20 years ago. About a year after the almost 500- page report was made available, the US Department of Education partnered with the National Institute for Literacy and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. They released a much shorter and friendlier version for classroom teachers titled Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read.5

I was a product of an EPP that leaned heavily toward the implicit teaching of reading. In fact, during the field experience phase of the preservice training, my field service professor warned us against teaching any foundational reading skill lesson. Doing so meant a failing grade for her class.

Because I had witnessed the teaching of foundational reading skills (including the teaching of explicit phonemic awareness skills) to federal prison inmates, I knew teaching reading was about more than just osmosis. It had to do with the explicit teaching of certain skills. Since I had not learned those skills through my EPP, the information published by the National Literacy Panel made sense. When I coupled it with the publication Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science, written by my mentor and teacher Dr. Louisa Moats, everything made sense.6 It’s been over 20 years that I have been on my journey of teaching literacy skills.

Because of my lack of teaching reading know-how, I clung to everything that had to do with teaching foundational reading skills through the support of oral language development. Unfortunately, the disputes began, and clearly, two opposing points of view emerged: those who did not feel that the psychology of reading applied to English learners and those who did. Regrettably, these polar opposites kept the attention away from teacher-training programs. All is not gloom and doom. I feel the field has also had an epiphany like the one I had 20 years ago. There has been a positive shift in our field of education, acknowledging and incorporating scientific insights into the teaching and learning of reading. This shift has included English learners, as was evident with the release of The Reading League’s Joint Statement.7

I was part of this historic convening of experts that occurred in early 2023 and once and for all brought all camps and viewpoints together to acknowledge that a comprehensive body of reading knowledge exists, and it is a body of knowledge that is also relevant to the instruction provided to our nation’s English learners. According to the Joint Statement, “this knowledge should be embraced and applied to inform instruction, complemented by understanding and addressing the social, linguistic, and cultural factors that impact students.”

Taking Action
Now that the field has agreed on the knowledge base needed by teachers working with English learners, The Reading League’s Joint Statement can serve as the necessary catalyst to reconfigure EPPs across the country. I propose the following:

1. Coursework that includes:
• The principles specific to the psychology of reading.
• High-quality textbooks that cover phonics instruction, phonemic awareness, fluency, oral language development, comprehension strategies, and the cognitive processes involved in reading that can also drive lesson scaffolding and differentiation.
• All elements that are specific to the teaching of ELs, including oral or spoken language acquisition and development (form, use, and content), and how, because of high variability factors among ELs, oral language must be the common fabric across all subject matter being learned.
• The targeted teaching of all language systems (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, oral and written discourse, and orthography) and how they, too, should be incorporated across all content and subject matter.
• How to align assessments with the specific goals and needs of English learners, considering factors such as age, language proficiency levels, and cultural background.
• Processes needed to either enhance or include parent and community engagement.

2. Field practice that includes working with English learners and skilled teachers delivering effective and scaffolded instruction.

3. An introductory course dedicated only to the teaching of English learners that covers key concepts, strategies, and methods that educators can use to support the language development and academic success of students who are learning to read and write in English and the considerable variability among all English learners.

Bureaucracies can never be eliminated, but the processes universities and colleges must undertake when making changes to course requirements to better reflect current research findings must be significantly expedited. The procedures needed for change should never be the reason not to pursue it.

We have a way to go, but the future does indeed look bright. The field, overall, has embraced a shift not based on the latest trend but one supported and driven by science. Do we have all the answers? Of course not, but the path to getting those answers continues to be paved by evidence of what works and the scaffolds that must be in place for all our students.

We must never lose sight of the fact that until reading instruction serves all students equally, we are shortchanging everyone and society. Most importantly, we must advocate for teacher preparation programs that send educators out into the world with the skills they need to ensure success for every child in every classroom, regardless of “the language they are loved in” (to quote my mentor, Dr. Moats).

Notes
1. US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, EDFacts file 141, Data Group 678, extracted March 31, 2021; and Common Core of Data (CCD), Local Education Agency Universe Survey, 2020–21. See Digest of Education Statistics 2022, table 204.20.

2. US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 1992–2022 Reading Assessments.

3. Council of the Great City Schools (2023). A Framework for Foundational Literacy Skills Instruction for English Learners: Instructional Practice and Material Considerations.

4. Peske, H. (2023). “Are We Setting Up Our English Learners for Reading Success?” National Council for Teacher Quality.

5. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2001). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. US Government Printing Office.

6. Moats, L. (1999) “Teacher Reading IS Rocket Science.” American Federation of Teachers.

7. The Reading League (2023). “The Reading League Summit Joint Statement.”

Antonio Fierro, EdD, is the VP of professional learning and academics at 95 Percent Group (www.95percentgroup.com).

Deconstructing English Learner Labels, Constructing Multilingual Schools


Across tens of thousands of US schools, a myriad of labels, from limited English proficient, former limited English proficient, and English language learners to English learners, have been assigned to students who speak languages in addition to English. These designations, often condensed into acronyms like LEPS, FLEPS, ELLs, and ELs, essentialize and constrain students’ educational experiences. Students learning the dominant, majoritized language, English, are legally and prescriptively labeled, unlike their classmates learning “foreign,” “modern,” or “world” languages. For instance, students learning French are not legally referred to as French learners or FLs. Research has determined that labeling students, regardless of the specific nomenclature of the label, results in tracked, inferior, and limited schooling (Callahan and Gandara, 2004; Callahan et al., 2010; Dabach, 2014). This persistent and harmful practice calls for a paradigm shift. Instead of categorizing students based on language abilities (Kanno et al., 2024), there should be a shift in focus over time to the language proficiencies and identities of schools, rather than the students in them. We offer guidance for teachers and researchers to evaluate the labels they encounter or use and call for the abolition of both the term and the legal designation English learner.

Previously defended as neutral and simply descriptive, the aforementioned labels are now more commonly understood to be deficit-based and dehumanizing— that is, they define students by what they supposedly lack, rather than by their strengths and abilities. Understandably, there is an ongoing debate and caution regarding the labeling of students, especially when these labels are tied to histories of racism and linguistic discrimination. Additionally, categorizing practices have a real impact on how teachers and institutions view students and their potential (García, 2021), and even how students think of themselves. Terms like English learner also lend more social and educational prestige to English than students’ other language(s) and erase the multiple language varieties students engage in.

Recently, the terms multilingual learner (ML), emergent multilingual learner (EML), and multilingual English learner (MEL) (Najarro, 2023) have become more and more popular. This trend has culminated from varied efforts to seek more assetbased terminology and to acknowledge that students speak many languages in addition to learning English. However, it’s important to also recognize these terms come with their own limitations. For instance, emergent multilingual learner suggests that multilingualism is not fully accomplished until the student has acquired English. Multilingual learner is too broad, as it could encompass the large number of students who are not placed in English language classes but who speak multiple languages. Even the term multilingual English learner (Orbe et al., 2023), although specific and inclusive of students’ other languages, is imperfect, as any label would be. The misconception stems from the reality that the label is only needed because current school structures and systems are insufficient for students whose primary language is not English. Language education policies of the past and present make this reality evident.

Take, for instance, current language education policy in California, the state with the highest number of students designated as English learners. Removal of this label, in California, is based on the state’s reclassification criteria (California Department of Education), which include:

• Criterion 1: Assessment of English language proficiency
• Criterion 2: Teacher evaluations
• Criterion 3: Parent consultation
• Criterion 4: Basic skills relative to English-proficient students

While many educators and researchers have critiqued Criteria 1–3, let’s focus primarily on the fourth item. It is particularly intriguing in the context of understanding labels, as it introduces a new categorizing term: English-proficient students. This term is not widely used outside of its comparative purpose, as in non-English-proficient students and reclassified fluent English-proficient students. It is also not reduced to an acronym of EPS to be socially and legally attached to students whose primary language is English and who might be learning some other languages. The term English-proficient students has a different function. In the explanation of the fourth criterion, the phrase “basic skills relative to English-proficient students” is described further as being:

“Comparison of the performance of the pupil in basic skills against an empirically established range of performance in basic skills based upon the performance of English-proficient pupils of the same age, which demonstrates whether the pupil is sufficiently proficient in English to participate effectively in a curriculum designed for pupils of the same age whose native language is English” (California Department of Education).

If an “English-proficient student” is a student “whose native language is English,” then reclassification out of English learner status hinges upon performing linguistically and academically like a student whose “native” language is English. This is despite the identified fallacy of the native-speaker standard (Cheng et al., 2021; Cook, 1999; Doerr, 2009). This explanation also sheds light on the underlying purpose of the label, along with the associated services, support systems, stigma, and segregation (Gandara, 2020). The purpose is to supplement a curriculum that was not designed for students who do not speak English or even with them in mind (Chang-Bacon, 2022). Even after Lau v. Nichols (1974) confirmed a constitutional right to equitable educational access, equitable educational access has since been reinterpreted through assimilationist, monolingual ideologies to mean access to education through English (Gray, 2020; Reeves, 2004). Rather than restructuring a monolingual system to meet the needs of a multilingual society and student body, the designation is used to remold students’ language into that of their “native-speaker” English-monolingual peers for whom the system was designed. Thus, it is the schools and systems, not students, that are insufficiently multilingual.

Rather than labeling and modifying students and their language, we propose that it is schools that require systemic and structural change. Terms like English learner, related nomenclature, and attendant structures of separation and inequity must be abolished. This is not a destructive act we propose. The practices and processes built around the labeling of linguistically minoritized people marginalize them into externally applied identities that they must “exit” in order to seek parity. Therefore, it is exactly this set of practices and processes, not its termination, that is destructive.

What we are proposing is the intentional, collaborative construction of multilingual schools. These are learning environments designed for all students where they can “use their full linguistic repertoire” (García, 2020) and be their full multi- and translingual selves. These schools will make such labels as English learner obsolete. Intentionality is key, as impulsively rushing to abolish a label without recommendations for systemic or structural change would be, as warned by Gerald (2022), an instinct of Whiteness and an insincere attempt to disrupt White-dominant schooling paradigms. For instance, shifting the label from students to schools would have material consequences for federal funding associated with the number of students designated as ELs. But rather than concluding that labeling students is then required and therefore settling on the most asset-oriented language, we can link the abolition of harmful labels to larger social movements seeking reparative funding structures for public schools in the US and build sites of mutual need.

Indeed, there is movement in the direction of multilingual schooling (Najarro, 2023), though it has been gradual. While maintaining the long-term goal of system-wide educational justice, researchers, leaders, and teachers must, in the short term, be critical and cautious about the language they encounter and use (Kanno et al., 2024). For the educators and researchers who are creating targeted instructional supports, interventions, or policies for students in monolingual, English-dominant schools today and for their foreseeable immediate future, we propose the following guidance for evaluating labels of linguistically minoritized students. If they are already in use or if they must be used at all, they should:

• be premised on the goal of linguistic justice–the dismantling of linguistic racism and the centering of linguistically minoritized students’ language and literacy practices (Baker-Bell, 2020);
• be intentional, specific to their purpose (e.g., research, pedagogy, policy change), and descriptive;
• be relevant and meaningful to students they describe;
• use people-first language (e.g., students learning English) that centers students’ humanity, not their language-proficiency typologies.

Further, before rushing to coin the next slightly more “asset-based” label, make space for students to reclaim their language identities by asking students how they wish to be referred to. Building more liberatory praxis within the shell of hierarchical institutions is, for students and workers, about “self-determination, not secession” (Manji, 2020). Educators and researchers who operate within contemporary monolingual schools should thus seek out ways to recognize students’ right, and their power, to name themselves.

These are provisional goals, not end goals. Stopping at modification of labels would simply be a “reformist reform,” an innovation that is grafted onto the existing structure without affecting the status quo (Solorzano and Yosso, 2000). Reformist reforms have slowed the moment of multilingual education, in spite of its promise, by decrying it with incrementalist critiques and framing it as “pie-in-the-sky” radicalism. For this reason, the conversation about English learner versus emergent multilingual learner is not simply a matter of terminology but a manifestation of a larger change that originates in reorienting our relationships to our students and our understanding of language itself.

Nonreformist reform—that is, transformative abolitionist frameworks of language justice—would extend beyond labels to collective action that transforms societal attitudes and systems. Of course, there will be some churn in professional associations and licensure types as we teachers of English come to see ourselves as teachers of a language, not teachers of the language. But since the harm caused by labeling and the tracking it leads to is well-evidenced, we should not cling to the professional associations and practices that have enabled this harm for decades. Instead, we should build new communities and strategically seek out ways to build multilingual schools capable of meeting the needs of both our multilingual moment and our students.

References
Baker-Bell, A. (2020). Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy. Routledge.

California Department of Education (2024). Reclassification. www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/rd

Callahan, R. M., and Gándara, P. (2004). “On Nobody’s Agenda: Improving English language learners’ access to higher education.” Teaching Immigrant and Second-Language Students: Strategies for Success, 107–127.

Callahan, R., Wilkinson, L., and Muller, C. (2010). “Academic Achievement and Course Taking among Language-Minority Youth in US Schools: Effects of ESL placement.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 32(1), 84–117.

Chang-Bacon, C. K. (2022). “Monolingual Language Ideologies and the Massachusetts Sheltered English Immersion Endorsement Initiative: A critical policy analysis.” Educational Policy, 36(3), 479–519.

Cheng, L. S., Burgess, D., Vernooij, N., Solís-Barroso, C., McDermott, A., and Namboodiripad, S. (2021). “The Problematic Concept of Native Speaker in Psycholinguistics: Replacing vague and harmful terminology with inclusive and accurate measures.” Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 715843.

Cook, V. (1999). “Going beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching.” TESOL quarterly, 33(2), 185–209.

Dabach, D. B. (2014). “‘I Am Not a Shelter!’: Stigma and social boundaries in teachers’ accounts of students’ experience in separate ‘sheltered’ English learner classrooms.” Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 19(2), 98–124.

Doerr, N. M. (2009). “Investigating ‘Native Speaker Effects’: Toward a new model of analyzing ‘native speaker’ ideologies.” The Native Speaker Concept: Ethnographic Investigations of Native Speaker Effects, 15–46.

Gándara, P. (2020). “Equity Considerations in Addressing English Learner Segregation.” Leadership and Policy in Schools, 19(1), 141–143.

García, A. (2021). “Words Matter: The Case for Shifting to ‘Emergent Bilingual.’” Language Magazine. www.languagemagazine.com/2021/06/17/words-matter-the-case-for-shifting-to-emergent-bilingual

García, O., and Kleifgen, J. A. (2020). “Translanguaging and Literacies.” Reading Research Quarterly, 55(4), 553–571.

Gray, T. (2020). “Teaching and Learning amid Demographic Change: A thematic review of school responses to newcomer students in the new Latinx diaspora.” Journal of Latinos and Education, 1–22.

Gerald, J. P. B. (2022). Antisocial Language Teaching: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness (Vol. 110). Channel View Publications.

Kanno, Y., Rios-Aguilar, C., and Bunch, G. C. (2024). “English Learners? Emergent Bilinguals? Multilingual Learners?: Goals, contexts, and consequences in labeling students.” TESOL Journal, e797.

Manji, F. (2020). “Amilcar Cabral and Ken Saro-Wiwa: Their commonalities on culture and the struggle for freedom.” Ukombozi Review. https://ukombozireview.com/blog/amilcar-cabral-and-ken-saro-wiwa-their-commonalities-on-culture-and-the-struggle-for-freedom

Najarro, I. (2023) “The Debate over English Learner Terminology, Explained.” EdWeek. www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/the-debate-over-english-learner-terminology-explained/2023/03

Najarro, I. (2023) “Here’s Why Miguel Cardona Is Pushing Multilingual Education.” EdWeek. www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/heres-why-miguel-cardona-is-pushing-multilingual-education/2023/11

Orbe, C. Jr., O’Neill, E., Otero Asmar, Y. I., and Andrews, O. S. (2023). “Commentary: Maryland Can Do More to Support English Learners.” Baltimore Banner. www.thebaltimorebanner.com/opinion/community-voices/english-learners-education-general-assembly-YBTRDDS7QBAW3GQIKNRXX5TFKI

Reeves, J. R. (2004). “‘Like Everybody Else’: Equalizing educational opportunity for English language learners.” TESOL Quarterly, 38(1), 43–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588258

Solorzano, D. G., and Yosso, T. J. (2000). “Maintaining Social Justice Hopes within Academic Realities: A Freirean approach to critical race/LatCrit pedagogy.” Denver Law Review, 78, 595.

Samantha Harris (she/her) is a researcher and educator in Santa Barbara, California. Her research focuses on the intersections of immigration, race, and language education with a specific focus on policy, curriculum, and pedagogy for newcomer students and students classified as English learners.

Owen Silverman Andrews, MA TESOL, works toward language justice as part of building a more socially and racially just society. He is an instructional specialist in English language learning at Anne Arundel Community College and an EdD student at University of Virginia. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, US.

Breaking Down the Monolingual Wall II

Dual language education (DLE) programs are uniquely positioned to be models of culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogy that can shape instruction of multilingual language learners nationally. However, to achieve this goal, DLE programs must prioritize a culturally responsive framework.

Here’s a short scenario to set the stage for the topic and briefly define culturally responsive teaching, sharing why it is a critical framework for multilingual learners in DLE programs.

Scenario: A Spanish–English dual language immersion program in an urban elementary school uses a 50/50 model with Spanish and English integrated equally throughout the curriculum. The program strives for an equal ratio of native English speakers and native Spanish speakers. However, the reality is that many of the students coming from Spanish-speaking backgrounds were born in the US and have stronger English language skills than Spanish skills. The math curricular units alternate between Spanish and English. However, during small-group math discussions, students are given the option to speak in their preferred language. Because English is the dominant language for the majority of the students, almost all of the small-group discussions occur in English. Ms. Torres, the English language development (ELD) teacher, has noted that frequently the Spanish-speaking students who are recent arrivals to the US and are in the process of acquiring English remain quiet during these math discussions. She understands the importance of giving students choice in their language use, but she also wants to provide some recommendations to teachers on how to engage this particular group of multilingual learners more effectively in mathematical discussions with their peers.

• Viewing this scenario through the lens of cultural and linguistic equity, what stands out to you?
• What advice might you offer the ELD teacher?

As you can see in this scenario, even within a program committed to educating multicultural and multilingual students, there can be areas of inequity for multilingual learners and a need to strengthen culturally responsive teaching practices.

What is culturally responsive teaching and why is it important?
Culturally responsive teaching is an educational framework that is centered on recognizing, valuing, building on, and sustaining the cultural and linguistic experiences of students of color who have been historically underserved by US educational systems (Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1995; Gay, 2002, 2010; Paris and Alim, 2017). Ladson-Billings (1992, 1995) coined the term culturally relevant pedagogy to characterize an instructional framework that aims to empower culturally and linguistically diverse students on intellectual, social, emotional, and political levels. The goal of this framework is to integrate students’ cultural references into all aspects of education, set high expectations for students, and develop students’ skills in being able to identify and challenge social inequities (Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1995). Gay (2010) used the term culturally responsive teaching to describe an approach that uses “cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles” to make learning more meaningful for culturally and linguistically diverse students (p. 31).

Expanding on this concept, Paris and Alim (2017) argue for a culturally sustaining pedagogy that nurtures students’ cultural practices by intentionally and systematically integrating students’ languages and cultural identities into lessons and curricular units, based on conversations with students and families about what aspects of culture they want to sustain through their schooling. Paris and Alim explain that a priority of culturally sustaining pedagogy is to support students in making meaningful connections between what they are learning and the histories of racial, ethnic, and linguistic communities (Ferlazzo, 2017).

Not only is culturally responsive teaching a way to make learning more meaningful for multilingual learners, it is also a way to strengthen two essential components of dual language education: sociocultural competence and critical consciousness (Soto et al., 2023). Howard et al. (2018) describe sociocultural consciousness as “a term encompassing identity development, cross-cultural competence, and multicultural appreciation—for all students” (p. 3).

Critical consciousness is the ability to analyze social systems in order to identify inequities and to commit to taking action against these inequities (Freire, 1970; Ladson-Billings, 1992). Palmer et al. (2019) have been vocal advocates for actions that foster critical consciousness among teachers, parents, and students in dual language programs. Accordingly, culturally responsive teaching can be a useful framework for considering what it looks like to nurture sociocultural competence and critical consciousness in practice in dual language programs.

What practices support culturally responsive teaching?
To embed culturally responsive teaching in DLE programs, it is essential to know what this framework looks like in practice. Please take a moment to think about your educational context.

• What culturally responsive and sustaining practices are already in place?
• What could be improved upon?

To assist educators in reflecting on what it might look like to bring the theory of culturally responsive teaching into practice, Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner and I developed five guiding principles of culturally responsive teaching for multilingual learners framed around research on this topic. In our book Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity (2021), we included possible look-fors for each guiding principle. In Chapter 2 of Breaking Down the Monolingual Wall, I adapted these guiding principles and identified new look-fors to focus on the urgent needs of DLE programs.

What are the five guiding principles for culturally responsive teaching in dual language education programs?
Culturally responsive teaching is assets-based and grounded in a framework of cultural and linguistic equity (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021; Soto et al., 2023). Guiding Principle 1 is the foundation for all our work with multilingual learners and calls on educators to learn about and develop relationships with students and their families in order to recognize and build on the cultural and linguistic assets that they bring. This first guiding principle is also an invitation to educators in dual language programs to identify areas of inequity for multilingual learners and to work to challenge these inequities.

For example, in your program, is one language integrated more frequently into instruction? In your school or district, are multilingual learners in the DLE program equitably represented in honors classes and/or gifted programming? Our tool Exploring Inequity in My Context (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021, pp. 69–70) might be a helpful lens to examine possible inequities in your context.

Culturally responsive teaching simultaneously supports and challenges students (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021; Soto et al., 2023). Guiding Principle 2 speaks to the importance of providing multilingual learners in dual language programs with access to challenging grade-level content while at the same time giving them the scaffolded support (e.g., modeling, visuals) that they need to engage with academic content in both languages and develop academic language. Additionally, this guiding principle advocates for instruction that offers multiple perspectives on a topic and fosters the development of critical consciousness. For example, students might analyze the national shift from celebrating Columbus Day to celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day and have an opportunity to discuss the debate around this shift in both English and the partner language using scaffolded supports for academic language use.

Culturally responsive teaching puts students at the center of the learning (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021; Soto et al., 2023). Guiding Principle 3 emphasizes the importance of student-centered learning with opportunities for students to engage in peer-learning activities conducted in both English and the partner language and with structures in place to support participation by multilingual learners.

Guiding Principle 3 also identifies the need to engage students in goal-setting and self-assessment through the use of student checklists, goal-setting tools, and student conferencing. Let’s return to the opening scenario about peer learning groups for math. In that situation, Ms. Torres might propose strategic grouping of students as well as discussion routines to foster greater participation by all students.

She might model the inclusion of Spanish sentence stems to increase all students’ use of Spanish during small-group discussions, highlighting the importance of multilingual learner participation and use of their home language. She might also recommend that students have an opportunity to reflect on their language use during the discussions and set goals for strengthening their use of academic language in both languages. Our Peer Learning Activity Checklist (Staehr Fenner et al., 2024, p. 114) is a tool for considerations in designing effective peer learning activities to engage multilingual learners at varying levels of language proficiency.

Culturally responsive teaching leverages and sustains students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds and fosters sociocultural competence (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021; Soto et al., 2023). Guiding Principle 4 builds on Guiding Principle 1 and stresses the importance of having high-quality instructional materials in both languages as well as lessons and units that incorporate perspectives, experiences, and resources that resonate with multilingual learners’ experiences and backgrounds. Students should be explicitly taught patterns of language that will allow them to integrate their understanding of their home languages into their learning of the partner language and be provided with such tools as multilingual word walls, cognate exploration, and student-created bilingual dictionaries or glossaries to support learning (Escamilla et al., 2022).

Culturally responsive teaching unites students’ schools, families, and communities (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021; Soto et al., 2023). Guiding Principle Five is built on the understanding that, in order to effectively foster multilingual learners’ academic and social and emotional well-being, we must collaborate with students’ families and communities.

Dual language education programs must prioritize removing barriers that stand in the way of family engagement, such as communication, timing of events, childcare, and/or transportation (Snyder and Staehr Fenner, 2021). Additionally, it is critical to make space and time for questions and concerns of multilingual families to be heard (Safir and Dugan, 2021; Palmer et al., 2019). Taking the steps to build equitable partnerships with multilingual families requires us to go beyond written surveys and offer listening sessions and focus groups held in families’ home languages and in places where they feel comfortable (Palmer et al., 2019).

Guiding Principle Five also emphasizes the importance of learning about the resources in students’ communities and building partnerships with community organizations to amplify the support that can be provided to multilingual students.

What step should I take next?
It can be challenging to know where to get started with strengthening culturally responsive teaching in your classroom, school, or district’s dual language program. Here are a couple of steps to get you started:

With a team of stakeholders (i.e., teachers, administrators, staff, ML families, students, and/or community partners), consider the extent to which your school mission espouses an assets-based perspective for all learners and a commitment to cultural and linguistic equity. Does the mission need to be strengthened in any way? Do all stakeholders understand and embrace the mission? If not, what steps can you take to support greater understanding of and commitment to the mission? Collaboratively review the Culturally Responsive School Checklist and Goal-Setting for Dual Language Programs. Based on your reflection and discussion, determine priority areas for next steps. For example, do you want to focus on strengthening equity in family and community engagement? Do you want to prioritize a review of dual-language curricular materials to increase access to materials and texts in both languages and increase representation in curricular units?

Whatever step you decide to take next, I encourage you to look for partners in your work. The challenge of strengthening culturally and linguistically sustaining practices can feel daunting. However, when you partner together on this important work, you send a message of how critical it is to create a space in which all voices are heard and valued, and you acknowledge that the entire community will be strengthened through these efforts.

References
Escamilla, K., Olsen, L., and Slavik, J. (2022). “Towards Comprehensive, Effective Literacy Policy and Instruction for English Learner/ Emergent Bilingual Students.” White paper. National Committee for Effective Literacy.

Ferlazzo, L. (2017). “Author Interview: ‘Culturally sustaining pedagogies.’” Education Week. www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-author-interview-culturally-sustaining-pedagogies/2017/07

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.

Gay, G. (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.

Gay, G. (2013). “Teaching to and through Cultural Diversity.” Curriculum Inquiry, 43(1), 48–70.

Howard, E. R., Lindholm-Leary, K. J., Rogers, D., Olague, N., Medina, J., Kennedy, B., Sugarman, J., and Christian, D. (2018). Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education (3rd ed.). Center for Applied Linguistics.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). “Reading between the Lines and beyond the Pages: A culturally relevant approach to literacy teaching.” Theory into Practice, 31(4), 312–320.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” American Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2004). “New Directions in Multicultural Education: Complexities, boundaries, and critical race theory.” In J. A. Banks and C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (2nd ed., pp. 50–65). Jossey Bass.

Palmer, D., Cervantes-Soon, Dorner, L., and Heiman, D. (2019). “Bilingualism, Biliteracy, Biculturalism, and Critical Consciousness for All: Proposing a fourth fundamental goal for two-way dual language education.” Theory into Practice, 58(2), 121–133.  

Paris, D., and Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. Teachers College Press.

Safir, S., and Dugan, J. (2021). Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation. Corwin.

Snyder, S., and Staehr Fenner, D. (2021) Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity. Corwin.

Soto, I., Snyder, S., Calderón, M., Gottlieb, M., Honigsfeld, A., Lachance, J., Marshall, M., Nungaray, D., Flores, R., and Scott, L. (2023). Breaking Down the Monolingual Wall: Essential Shifts for Multilingual Learners’ Success. Corwin.

Staehr Fenner, D., Snyder, S., and Gregoire-Smith, M. (2024). Unlocking Multilingual Learners’ Potential: Strategies for Making Content Accessible (2nd ed.). Corwin.

Sydney Snyder, PhD, is a principal associate at SupportEd (https://supported.com), a woman-owned small business dedicated to advocacy and educational equity for multilingual learners and their families. In this role, she provides professional development, coaching, and technical assistance to organizations, districts, and educators in support of multilingual learners and their families.

She is the co-author of Unlocking Multilingual Learners’ Potential: Strategies for Making Content Accessible, Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity, and Breaking Down the Monolingual Wall: Essential Shifts for Multilingual Learners’ Success.

You can connect with her at [email protected].

Opera for Educators

LA Opera has experts in languages, music, and history, ready to work with educators to integrate opera into classrooms. The program which runs from September through May takes place over seven Saturday sessions, when participants listen to gorgeous music and discuss the latest in arts scholarship with experts in the field over Zoom.

Classes do not include admission to mainstage opera productions, but LAUSD salary points and UCLA extension credits are available.

From April 6 through 27, LA Opera will present Giuseppe Verdi’s beloved romantic tragedy, La Traviata, starring acclaimed American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen. The multilingual cast includes Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan will make his LA Opera debut as Violetta’s lover Alfredo and South Korean baritone Kihun Yoon, a former member of the company’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, who returns as Alfredo’s father Giorgio Germont.

“For 120 years, La Traviata has reigned as a supreme expression of the heightened emotions that can only be fully experienced in the opera house,” said Christopher Koelsch, LA Opera’s president and CEO. “This season’s gorgeous production, with James Conlon in the pit and Rachel Willis-Sørensen in the leading role, provides opera newcomers and seasoned aficionados alike with the perfect opportunity to see why Verdi’s masterpiece has held its place as one of the most beloved of all operas.”

La Traviata (“The Fallen Woman”) is based on the life of a real woman, Marie Duplessis (1824-1847), who rose from poverty to become one of 19th-century Paris’s most celebrated courtesans before dying at the age of 23 from tuberculosis. Writer Alexandre Dumas fils (one of her many lovers) based his romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias on their all-too-brief fling. He subsequently adapted it into a hugely successful play, upon which Verdi based his opera.

Marie’s tragically short life has also inspired filmmakers from the silent era to modern times. Notable screen adaptations of the story include the 1936 Greta Garbo classic Camille, the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, which made Julia Roberts a superstar, and the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge! with Nicole Kidman. The latter was adapted into a smash hit stage musical of the same name, opening on Broadway in 2019 and drawing capacity crowds to this day.

LA Opera has developed its own La Traviata Primary Lesson Plan (https://www.laopera.org/discover/connects/lesson-plans-and-resources/la-traviata-primary-lesson-plan/), in which students will learn about the spread of Tuberculosis in the 19th century, solve word problems involving distances and practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals to the hundredth.

Visit https://www.laopera.org/community/classroom-integration/ to see the range of educational programs offered by LA Opera.

AI and Embedded Technology Create Opportunities for Teachers and Students

Since ChatGPT was released a year ago, one of the leading topics for educators and edtech developers has been how to integrate AI into teaching and instruction. For all of the concerns about how AI is going to change the world as we know it, it might be helpful to review how the evolution of technology has improved the products teachers are using every day.

When Lexia began in 1984, the vision of using technology for explicit, systematic, and personalized instruction was a novel concept for schools and educators. It was a fringe idea when first introduced. But over the years, educators, parents, and students have seen the advantages of integrating technology into learning, with more effective solutions and stronger student outcomes.

We have always leveraged technology in our literacy products to support teachers and improve student outcomes, always with the teacher at the center of the instructional model—that has been a 40-year journey. We see this as a multiplier of educational impact. AI plus HI (human intelligence) equals improved outcomes. This is something we have always focused on and will continue to focus on into the future. But it’s not just technology for its own sake.

Technology elements, such as performance predictors, assessment technology, and speech-recognition engines, provide significant educational value and represent targeted, responsible use of various technologies, including machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence. This technology offers teachers information they need to personalize instruction that might not otherwise be available to them. It is intended to change the student experience and student outcomes through the data it provides on each student’s individual learning path.

As much as we talk about the broad effects of technology in instruction, it always comes back to the kind of impact we’re making on individual lives—students’ and teachers’. One of the most rewarding aspects of integrating technology into products is increasing equitable instruction among students. We are:

• Leveraging students’ strengths and effectively scaffolding instruction;
• Encouraging children to use digital tools to collaborate, create, and solve problems;
• Sharing diverse curricula that include all learners’ cultures and engage their interest.

Because the pace of technology developments continues to increase, we believe that schools and districts must prioritize ongoing professional learning for the effective integration of technology into instruction. Professional learning should help teachers give students agency and offer differentiated support to match teachers’ specific skills and knowledge. Since equity without literacy is impossible, it is critical that we develop teachers’ capacity to help all students learn to read.

Instructional Technology in Action for Literacy Learning
While it seems now that everyone is talking about the science of reading, as an organization we have been committed to applying the science of reading through its application in structured literacy since 1984. Research tells us that 95% of all students have the capacity to learn to read when teacher-led instruction and evidence-based curricula align with the science of reading. Always-on diagnostics seamlessly provide multiple asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities that adapt to individual students to keep them in their zone of proximal development—the place between where a student can achieve alone and where they need assistance.

Our patented technology Assessment Without Testing (AWT) is embedded in Lexia’s curriculum products. Powered by adaptive branching logic to use data to predict students’ future performance, it provides educators with ongoing progress monitoring for each student in order to differentiate instruction in real time. AWT is collecting data with every click, providing information for teachers to assess where students are without stopping or waiting for benchmark assessments. It identifies students’ risk levels, predicts future performance, and prescribes instructional intensity. The adaptive blended learning models of our curriculum products leverage technology to provide a personalized, data-driven approach to learning, giving students control over the time, place, and path of their learning. This framework combines powerful technology features while leveraging the importance of the teacher with robust data and additional offline resources. The adaptive learning model also pinpoints the appropriate entry point for each student, ensuring an optimal learning experience.

Machine learning is an application of AI that we use in our speech-recognition engine, Cambium Smart Speech. This combines computer science and computational linguistics that enables recognition of spoken language and turns it into text. It was coded to accept the phoneme blends/accents of all learners, so it can recognize a wide variety of accented English voices. It helps students interact with activities to practice a concept until it is mastered by utilizing machine learning algorithms behind the scenes as the performance data is being captured. This is a big advantage for emergent bilingual learners and for all students.

The embedded speech-recognition technology provides students with immediate, guided, corrective feedback, helping students build linguistic confidence in academic English. Students work independently at their own pace, following individualized learning paths made available by the combination of student-led online learning and teacher-led instruction.

Past, Present, and Future Use of AI Technology
Our singular focus on literacy and a full spectrum of professional learning, curriculum, and embedded assessment solutions have helped millions of learners read, write, and speak with confidence over the past 40 years. Last year, we served 6.8 million students and 620,000 educators across more than 23,000 schools nationwide. We have done this by leveraging innovative technologies into our products and programs, while keeping the teacher at the center of instruction.

We continue to explore new technologies to determine if we can amplify our services to literacy educators and their students. Every student has the right to learn how to read. Our goal has always been to empower teachers to reap the efficiencies of ever-evolving AI and embedded technology while creating more time for them to focus on what they do best—engaging students in dynamic, systematic, and explicit instruction to help them listen, speak, and read with ease.

Nick Gaehde is the president of Lexia and a lifelong literacy advocate.

ALAS Accepting Applications for its Leadership Academies

The Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS) is accepting applications now through April 15, 2024 for its Superintendents Leadership Academy (SLA) and National Principal Leadership Academy (NPLA).

The academies provide coaching, mentoring, and support to improve and expand opportunities for emerging school system leaders. They include a mix of in-person and virtual sessions that help participants acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to serve in principal or superintendent roles in school systems, with an emphasis on school systems that serve primarily Latino and other historically marginalized students.

Participants in the Academies must be members of ALAS. The association will provide participants with a 25% discount off of the ALAS membership fee.

“Latino children make up more than a quarter of the students in our nation’s schools and it is imperative that we have strong leaders at both the school and district level who understand how to support the needs of Latino and other historically-marginalized youth,” said ALAS Executive Director Dr. Maria Armstrong. “Our academies, which are led by seasoned professionals who have years of experience in the field, provide invaluable opportunities for those seeking targeted, relevant, high-quality leadership development.”

Learn more and apply at https://www.alasedu.org/superintendents-leadership-academy

UN to Promote News in Local African Languages

The United Nations (UN) is ready to partner with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) to promote production of news in local languages across Africa, according to Ronald Kayanja, the director of the UN Information Centre (UNIC) in Nigeria.

Kayanja cited the inability of the media in Africa to project countries in the continent positively and promote the understanding of news content in local vernacular as major challenges to journalism on the continent.

According to him, the UN wants to promote Hausa as the second most-widely spoken Indigenous African language, saying, “After Swahili, you have Hausa as the second largest language on the continent. So, the UN has six major languages, we have added Hindi because of India. We have added Swahili and we are adding Hausa for obvious reasons. It has nothing to do with Amina Mohammed, because she’s Deputy Secretary of the UN, no, it’s out of the figures, the numbers make it so evident…For us, we are also developing it as a language of communication within the United Nations because of the reach when you look at the Sahel, a major region for us. Hausa is major.

Adding, “Recently, when we had the challenges we had in Niger and we wanted to monitor the media, of course, everybody told us we have to monitor the Hausa media. Then you can understand what is happening from where people are.”

He described Hausa as a language that had become useful in an area the organization should work on.

“As a non-Nigerian appointed to the country, many friends including relatives asked me, are you going to Nigeria? What about Boko Haram? One of the challenges in Africa is that we are not good at journalism that projects our countries positively. Bad news is good news. Until I came to Nigeria, I didn’t know about the great things happening in this country. I had to see them myself. When you travel around, you see the many wonderful things happening in this country, but if you only consume the media, especially social media, you may think this country is on fire. So that’s what I always tell my journalist colleagues. I think we are undermining ourselves. When you look at the U.S., for instance, how many people die every day of gunshot? But you don’t see that as headline.”

‘Massive’ Expansion of Spanish-Language News

Entravision (NYSE: EVC), a global advertising solutions, media and technology company, is adding 38 new weekly newscasts on its Univision affiliated television stations across the U.S. The expanded news coverage now delivers more than 300 hours of weekly news coverage, across 121 newscasts, to the influential Latino electorate.

“With 27 years of providing trusted local news to Latinos, we understand the vital role that local news plays as a lifeline to our communities,” said Jeffery A. Liberman, president and Chief Operating Officer. “We are unveiling an unprecedented level of Spanish-language news coverage in anticipation of an unprecedented election year. Starting today, advertisers have even more opportunities to reach Latinos, the most influential voting electorate, through highly trusted news sources.”

In January, Entravision introduced early and late weekend newscasts to its Univision stations in Denver, Colorado Springs, Las Vegas, and San Diego. This expansion more than doubled Entravision’s weekend news coverage. In addition, starting today, viewers in Entravision’s 21 Univision markets nationwide will wake up to a new local morning show: “Despierta al Día.” Entravision will also continue to deliver the midday local news show, “Al Día a Mediodía,” in all of its markets, along with weekday early and late evening newscasts. All of the newscasts are 100% locally produced by Entravision’s news organization of more than 200 people, including its trusted anchors and reporters.

“We are committed to providing knowledge-based content to empower our Latino community, and we strongly believe that Spanish-language media continues to be their main source of information,” said Bertha Gonzalez, VP News Operations and Community Empowerment. “Our unique portfolio allows us to reach key demographics, including our loyal adult viewers and new and younger consumers, through our broadcast and digital platforms.”

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