May 16, 2011

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr
The leaders of the office of English-language acquisition of the U.S. Department of Education haven’t been churning out new federal policies regarding ELLs, but they’re working hard to raise awareness about the needs of ELLs within the department and to build links with school districts [...]

By Anna Gorman
October 28, 2009
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/students-remaining-in-english-language-classes-to-long.html

Nearly 30% of Los Angeles Unified School District students placed in English language classes in early primary grades were still in the program when they started high school, increasing their chances of dropping out, according to a study released Wednesday.

More than half of those students were born in the United States [...]

By Mary Ann Zehr
October 28, 2009
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/22/09ell.h29.html?tkn=XNZFfeKVWcZC9LS4E68%2BTkhilNGCHVesN0v%2F

Large urban school districts that are successful with English-language learners provide strong oversight from the central office for educating those students, ensure that general education teachers as well as specialists receive professional development on how to work with ELLs, and use student data in a meaningful way to improve instruction [...]

by Jason Levy
October 29, 2009
http://gothamschools.org/2009/10/29/the-internet-is-a-language/

I presented yesterday at the GooglePlex in Mountain View at the Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age conference. I was on a panel called “New Learning Designs: Scaling Innovation to Reverse the Dropout Crisis.”

My goal was to paint a picture of 339’s turnaround (so far) and the role technology has played. [...]