Closing the Achievement Gap for ELL Students

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Closing the Achievement Gap for ELL Students
NYSUT Train the Trainer Event Promoting
Literacy for ELLs at all Levels March 18th,
2006 Presenter Giselle Lundy-Ponce,
AFT glundypo_at_aft.org
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Goals

• Provide information about the growing ELL
  population
• Review the main challenges this population
  confronts, social and economic consequences, and
  actions schools need to consider to address these
  issues
• Discuss resources to address these challenges

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ELL School-Age Population
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School Enrollment Rates

United States
LEP enrollment
Total K-12 enrollment
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Who Are They?

• 80 percent of ELLs are Latino

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Who Are They?
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Where Latinos come from
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Most Common Languages Spoken by ELLs

• Spanish
• Vietnamese
• Hmong
• Chinese, Cantonese
• Korean
• Haitian Creole
• Arabic
• Russian

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Latino Population Overall

• As of 2006, there were over 40 million Latinos

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Where Are They?

• The bulk of ELLs are concentrated in cities with
  AFT affiliates such as
• Boston
• Corpus Christi
• Houston
• Hartford
• Los Angeles
• New York City
• Miami
• San Antonio

And rapidly growing in smaller cities
like Hammond, IN Dalton, GA and Durham, NC
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Academic Challenges

• Latino ELLs have the highest dropout rate of all
  groups 43 percent (Non-Latino ELLs have a 6
  percent dropout rate)
• Persistent achievement gap between 38 percent
  and 57 percent of Latino students perform below
  grade level

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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic Challenges
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Academic ChallengesPost-Secondary Preparation

• Latinos accounted for only 10 percent of Advanced
  Placement (AP) examinees, compared to 66 percent
  of White Students
• Only 19 percent of Latino high school graduates
  are highly or very highly qualified for admission
  to a four-year higher education institution,
  compared to approximately 40 percent of Whites

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Academic Challenges

• Only 11 percent to 16 percent of Latinos graduate
  with a bachelors degree compared to 37 percent
  of Whites and 21 percent of African-Americans

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Educational ChallengesPost-Secondary Attainment

• Only 11 percent to 16 percent of Latinos have a
  bachelors degree compared to 37 percent of
  Whites and 21 percent of African-Americans

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Degrees Awarded in 2000
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Instructional Challenges

• Nationwide, less than 3 percent of ALL teachers
  of ELLs (i.e., any teacher with at least 1 ELL in
  his/her classroom) have received formal
  preparation, resources, and certification to work
  with them
• Only 12.5 percent of ALL teachers nationwide have
  had a maximum of one day of professional
  development related to ELLs in the past three
  years

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Instructional ChallengesLinguistic Isolation
Percent of ELLs in Schools
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Socio-Economic Realities
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Socio-Economic Challenges Poverty

• Two thirds of ELLs come from low-income families
• One third of Latino children live in poverty and
  lack any form of health insurance
• Latinos comprise almost 25 of all people living
  in poverty, but make up 14 of the population

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Socio-Economic Challenges Parental Levels of
Education

• Latino School-Age Children with Parents who Have
  Less than a HS Diploma 48
• African-American School-Age Children with Parents
  who Have Less than a HS Diploma 19
• White School-Age Children with Parents who Have
  Less than a HS Diploma 9

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Socio-Economic Challenges Annual Income Less
than 30K
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Socio-Economic ChallengesJobs in Low-Wage
Service Industry
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Overall Barriers

• Achievement Gap
• Less Academically Challenging and College
  Preparatory Coursework
• Lack of Access to Specialized Instruction
• Poverty, Lack of Health Insurance, Lack of
  Information about Higher Education, Low Levels of
  Prior Formal Education

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Giving our Members a Hand
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• What is Colorín Colorado?
• A Web site originally launched in 2003 by the
  Reading Rockets project of PBS Station WETA.
• It was originally created only for
  Spanish-speaking parents.
• Contains bilingual information for parents on how
  to help their children read and succeed at
  school.

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Why is it called Colorín Colorado?? If you're
from a Spanish-speaking country, you probably
recognize the playful phrase "colorín colorado."
It's from a verse that many children and adults
say after reading a good story together "Y
colorín, colorado, este cuento se ha acabado!"
("Colorín colorado, and that is the end of the
story!"). There is no literal translation, but
its similar to And they lived happily ever
after Those who grew up speaking Spanish often
smile at the name of the web site. The saying
brings back happy memories of childhood for
generations of people from many different
countries. Making people smile about reading
seemed like a perfect way to begin. And so that's
how we got Colorín Colorado!
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• Colorín Colorado has received
• many awards and recognitions
• EPpy finalist 2004, Best Internet Community
  Service Effort
• American Library Association, Great Web Site
• USA Today Hot Site
• National Association of School Psychologists
• School Library Journal
• National PTA Magazine

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• and fan mail
• I work for the Parents Information Center of
  Delaware and I work with Hispanic parents. I am
  always looking for resources for parents and your
  web site is a magnificent resource for the
  parents that only read/write Spanish. I thank you
  for this information that is available in
  Spanish. Maria
• I stumbled on this web site when I was looking
  for some bilingual handouts to use at an upcoming
  program I'm doing at our Head Start center. Our
  small southern county in south Georgia is home to
  more and more Hispanic families. Thanks for this
  and your many other internet resources! Norma
  M.

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• ColorinColorado.org is successful in
• providing great information for parents,
• but we knew something was missing
• Information for educators!

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So, Reading Rockets and AFT decided to
collaborate to create practical, research-based
information for educators on how to teach English
language learners to read, learn, and succeed in
the classroom
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• It was the start of a beautiful partnership!

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• Colorín Colorados new educators
• section was created in cooperation
• with the following researchers
• Dr. Margarita Calderón, Principal Research
  Scientist, Center for Data-Driven Reform in
  Education (CDDRE), Johns Hopkins University
• Dr. Claude Goldberg, Professor, Department of
  Teacher Education at California State University,
  Long Beach, and Research Psychologist at UCLA
• Dr. Diane August, Senior Research Scientist,
  Center for Applied Linguistics

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And the AFT ELL Educator Cadre!

• Ada Pujols-Torres, NY
• Cassandra Lawrence, NJ
• Catalina Fortino, NY
• Christine Rowland, NY
• Claudia Navarro, FL
• Cynthia Lundgren, MN
• Elaine LeBoeuf, CA
• Ginny Thomas, TX
• Hobie Hukill, TX

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And the AFT ELL Educator Cadre!

• Janet Montoya Schoeppner, NM
• Kristina Robertson, MN
• Linda Guthrie, CA
• Milagros Santiago, IL
• Miriam Martínez, NM
• Miriam Soto-Pressley, IN
• Rebecca Palacios, TX
• Rita Haecker, TX
• Susan Lafond, NY

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• The educators section includes
• the following information
• Background information on teaching ELLs
• How to reach out to Latino students and families
• Placement and assessment
• Teaching reading
• Teaching content areas
• Resources

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Parent Outreach Toolkit

• Provides useful information about Latino cultures
  and values
• Provides helpful suggestions for involving
  parents in the classroom
• Includes actual parent workshops with video
  components in English and Spanish that focus on
  PK-3 literacy development

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Thank You!Gracias!