Education Week - May 11, 2016 - 1

Education W

VOL. 35, NO. 30 * MAY 11, 2016

edweek.org:

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

Rich Districts
Post Widest
Racial Gaps

Students work in small groups in a
class at Upper Darby High School
in Upper Darby, Pa., where the
English-learner population speaks
a panoply of home languages.

Database Sheds New Light
On Achievement Disparities

Swikar Patel/Education Week

By Sarah D. Sparks

SPECIAL REPORT

Teaching America's
English-Language
Learners

Nearly 5 million children in U.S. public schools are English-language learners.
ELLs are at high risk for dropping out, and the graduation gap between them and
other students is vast. So with the number of ELLs projected to keep growing,
educators face an urgent imperative to dramatically improve their achievement.
How will they do that? See the pullout section opposite Page 14.

In education, a rising tide of resources
does not necessarily lift all boats.
Racial achievement gaps exist in nearly
every community across the country with
a measurable black or Hispanic population-and many districts with a traditional
commitment to education and resources to
serve all students instead have the worst
inequities, according to new research comparing achievement gaps across state lines.
Using a database of five years of test
scores from more than 40 million students
nationwide, Stanford University researchers Sean Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides,
and Kenneth Shores analyzed how racial
achievement gaps look in different parts
of the country, and how segregated schools
widen those gaps.
"I think we like to think, 'Here we have
this problem, but it's fixable. We know we
could figure it out.' It's not clear we've figured it out," said Reardon, a professor of
poverty and inequality in education at
Stanford. "There's some deep ... problems
that we as a society haven't faced up to yet."
The Stanford researchers and Harvard
PAGE 12 >

Bungling Student Names: A Slight That Stings
By Corey Mitchell
When people come across Michelle-Thuy
Ngoc Duong's name, they often see a stumbling block bound to trip up their tongues.
The 17-year-old sees a bridge.
A bridge spanning her parents' journey
from Vietnam to the United States.
A bridge connecting the U.S.-born teen to
Vietnamese culture.
A bridge to understanding.

"My name is where I come from," MichelleThuy Ngoc said. "It's a reminder of hope."
A junior at Downtown College Prep Alum
Rock High School, a San Jose, Calif.-based
charter school, Michelle-Thuy Ngoc (Michelle
knock twee) is among the students backing
"My Name, My Identity," a national campaign
that places a premium on pronouncing students' names correctly and valuing diversity.
The campaign-a partnership between the
National Association for Bilingual Educa-

tion, the Santa Clara, Calif., County Office
of Education, and the California Association
for Bilingual Education-focuses on the fact
that a name is more than just a name: It's one
of the first things children recognize, one of
the first words they learn to say, it's how the
world identifies them.
For students, especially the children of immigrants or those who are English-language
learners, a teacher who knows their name and

Pueblo, Colo.

Under the now-replaced No Child Left
Behind Act, the Colorado education department pumped in millions of state and federal
dollars to improve the Pueblo public schools,
almost half of which the state deems failing.
The test scores barely budged over the past
several years.
So when a handful of department officials
trooped down to this southeastern part of the
state last week to ask community members
what changes to the state's accountability
system they'd like to see under NCLB's re-

placement, the Every Student Succeeds Act,
district Superintendent Constance A. Jones
was ready for her turn at the microphone.
"I see this as a golden opportunity to rethink our entire accountability system,"
she said. Speaking from a torn-out sheet
of notebook paper, Jones cited a long list of
complaints: The department has become too
heavy-handed. Its labeling of schools is demoralizing. Its standards are inconsistent.
This is a taste of what state education officials nationwide may hear this spring as
they ask parents, teachers, district leaders,
and lawmakers to help them design their
revamped accountability plans under ESSA,

Popularity of Ed Tech
Often Not Linked
To Products' Impact
By Benjamin Herold

which eventually will be submitted to the U.S.
Department of Education.
ESSA, the latest version of the nation's
main K-12 law, gives states much more authority to design their own school-accountability and teacher-evaluation systems, among
other policies. To do that-and to avoid blindsiding local officials and community residents
-state education departments are convening
task forces, conducting online surveys, and
holding town hall meetings, sometimes in farflung corners of their states.
"From the front end, departments need to
be clear about their intentions," said Chris

Digital learning tools that fit well within existing classrooms and don't disrupt the educational status quo tend to be the most widely
adopted, despite their limited impact on student learning, an analysis of ed-tech products
designed for higher education concludes.
Experts say that pattern is also reflected
in K-12, raising tough questions about
whether many ed-tech vendors' emphasis
on quickly bringing their products to scale
is actually hampering the larger goal of improving schools.
"There is a lot of research showing that
more comprehensive technology interventions tend to have more positive results in
both sectors," said Barbara Means, the director of the Center for Technology in Learning
at SRI International, the nonprofit research
center that conducted the new analysis. "To
create an education technology tool that can
have an impact, but also be adopted in many
classrooms, requires thinking about supports

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PAGE 10 >

As ESSA Rolls Out, State Officials Vow to Hear Local Voices
By Daarel Burnette II

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - May 11, 2016

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