Another concern is that the popularity of these programs in white, affluent districts will lead to the schools being less focused on the needs of ELLs. The University of Connecticut, Cardona’s alma mater, has recently been awarded a $179,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education to address these concerns by promoting a greater focus on sociocultural competence.

“The children they serve, have simply never been given a fair shot at obtaining the resources needed to achieve the common outcome goals with their peers in the surrounding districts. As these districts have become increasingly Latinx, they have become even less able to meet their students’ needs and compete with neighboring districts for high-quality teachers and staff, “ wrote Baker and Robert Cotto, Jr., a Ph.D. student at UConn’s Neag School of Education and former school board member in Hartford.

“It’s not until they actually get out into the field, and see that they may be working in a place with English language learners, where they may think, ‘Oh, this might be an option for me to be a bilingual teacher or a TESOL teacher’,” Elizabeth Howard said. “And if they don’t land in a place, in a district, where there’s a high incidence of English learners, then it would not occur to them at all necessarily, they wouldn’t see the need for it.”

Last month, Rojas presented 30 iPads and a charging cart to Windham Middle School in Windham, Conn., as part of Mathematics Literacy in English Across Disciplines (Math LEAD) – an initiative that seeks to improve math instruction for the school’s large population of English language learners (ELLs).

It didn’t take long for New Britain fifth-grade teacher Kim Rosa Gionfriddo to realize the strategies she learned as a Neag School of Education REALL fellow to better teach students with limited English proficiency could  benefit native English-speaking students, too. “It’s a simple thing, but just by being more explicit and taking time to define […]

It all started with the fear and loathing Strand 25 brings to some math classrooms in the state. Strand 25 is the part of the benchmark Connecticut Mastery Test that presents what was once known as “word” or “thought” problems. Now they’re known as “open-ended, non-routine” problems with a lot of language involved. Similar problems […]

A major challenge is on its way to American education, one that teachers candidly concede they may not be ready to meet. Figures from the Census Bureau show that by 2030, 40% of U.S. students will be raised in homes where English is not the first language. Those startling numbers become even more of a […]