In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) established ongoing federal support for education in high poverty schools but did not ask for accountability or results based on funding provided or any other measure. High poverty schools were in part identified by the income of families of children who attend (The Elementary and Secondary Education Act). When later reauthorized, ESEA recognized that accountability for growth must begin at a student’s Lexile upon entry. “Standards-based reform that began in the 1990s set the standards for what students should be able to do, established assessments to measure progress, and holding schools accountable for progress towards these goals” (Mehta, 2013). To ensure that immigrants …show more content…
al., 2011) furthered the work of TESOL by developing the Cultural Proficiency Continuum, six dimensions that constitute a framework for describing a range of responses to diversity. It helps to measure cultural responsiveness from destructiveness to proficiency. The Cultural Proficiency Continuum can be used to help others raise equity concerns and awareness to move from cultural destructiveness to cultural proficiency (Love et. al., 2011). Cultural Destructiveness is demonstrated when teachers avoid portions of the curriculum that address values and traditions of other cultures. Cultural Incapacity is acting in ways that strip other cultures of their power while exalting one’s own. Treating people differently based on cultural stereotypes that are not rooted in any truth. Pretending as though there is no value in cultural differences is cultural blindness. Acting as though everyone has had the same opportunities is demonstrated when teachers are in the cultural blindness phase. Cultural Pre Competence is when one points out the weaknesses in other people. Sending a person on a field trip with a group of ESOL students that they do not service at the school makes it evident they were hired because they are a fluent speaker of Spanish and could be an asset to that cultural group. Respect for differences of others occurs when one reaches the cultural competence phase of the …show more content…
Discrimination in education continued forcing some to seek legal counsel in order to demand relief. For example, in 1970 the Department of Health, Education and Welfare had already given specific guidelines determining under which circumstances funds were issued, yet San Francisco Unified School District elected to ignore the federal regulations. Without going into specific details, the regulations required districts which did not provide services to address barriers to take affirmative steps or rectify the language deficiency (Moron, 2005). If deemed necessary by the school district, students could be grouped by ability to assist with English acquisition. San Francisco school district agreed to those regulations when they accepted federal
As stated in my Week 3 Journal Entry, at one point I was helping in a classroom with a child who speaks Spanish. Instead of trying to force the child to speak English, I tried to use some basic Spanish when I worked with them in order to make the child feel more comfortable. I believe by making this small effort to speak the child’s native language that the child was more willing to participate in class and try to learn English. An additional example of making a relation from the text to a personal experience is when I was in elementary through high school. I did not realize until reading Spring’s book how little cultural diversity was taught in my elementary, middle, and high school. I went to school in a very Scandinavian county, and we did not have a lot of diversity. There were several students in the district who came from Hispanic, Asian, or African decent—but they were very few. I cannot recall a day when a teacher spent time to discuss a one of these student’s cultures, which is utterly ridiculous. With the amount of time spent in school and the amount of diversity in the world, it seems illogical to barely speak of ethnic and cultural diversity. Even though there were only a handful of students in the district from different cultures, it would have been beneficial to learn more about the rest of the world because when high school is done we all go out into that diverse world. I know I will take the time and make the effort to teach my future students about the beauty of diversity and
The purpose of this study is to figure out which ways experienced teachers work best with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study illustrates which strategies experienced teachers have found to work best. The diversity in school in the United States has increased each year. This means that there are an increasing amount of students who are learning English, English language learners (ELLs). This article comes from the perspective that each child should be taught to their specific needs. All students deserve a fair chance to learn. Fair means that every student is treated differently, not equally. Every student learns differently. In order to give every student a fair chance at learning, you must teach them according to their needs. An experienced teacher, Tiffany, describes her experiences working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study watches her methods and discusses what works based on data analysis of the success of her students.
A book to love but hate, A Thousand Splendid Suns, it was written by Khaled Hosseini about two young girls and their life in Afghanistan. Mariam is the first girl introduced to the reader and the main focus until part two where Laila is introduced. The two soon come together through Rasheed, an abusive man whom they both marry. Through out this book it can be seen that man has the capacity for both good and evil through many aspects of the book including the tone.
Achievement gaps in schools across America impinge on racial-ethnic and socioeconomic status groups. For generations school systems focus on improving the achievement gaps for low-income and minority students. Statistics have provided evidenced that the school systems made enormous progress between 1970 and 1988, but came to a halt thereafter. Presently in the 20th century the gap has widened and the need for improvement is challenging for the school administr...
This program is generally focused to gather statistics on grade school inequalities that effect the entirety of the state. Researchers have suggested that school funding levels and student success rates are largely unrelated. The ability of schools to educate their children is affected solely by the teacher’s ability to teach. Yet for a number of years there has been a steady debate centered around the essentially counter-intuitive idea that the relationship between school resource levels and student performance is the only connection to California’s academic gap/ 1971, the California Supreme Court ruled this system of granted unequal funds to millions of children unconstitutional, promising California’s the state would standardize finances across all school districts. To do this California created Proposition 13 in 1978. This proposition reduced the local property tax revenues available to schools, and the state had to provide even more financial support to maintain similar funding levels across districts. Though it leveled the playing field for the middle class, this tactic created no growth in academic equality. In order to ensure a balance in opportunity to academically excel, California needs to scrutinize the funding system, to utilize all financial resources in ways that
The Educational Excellence for All Children Act (1999) was reformed by the federal government when a 1983 report stated that American Education was at jeopardy and needed to be improved. This report suggested that it would: “Raise high school graduation requirements for English, math, science, social studies, and computer science; upgrade elementary curriculum; and adapt more rigorous academic standards for all educational institutions using standardize tests to evaluate achievement.” Berns (2010) p. 212. In order to address this, government, education other business worked together to set forth six goal that would improve educational standards in the nation.
As an educator one must understand that the children you will be teaching will all come from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different homes with different values. No one student will be the same, and no one student will learn the same. The role of a modern educator is to harness this idea of diversity and channel it into a positive learning atmosphere for children of all backgrounds. “I define culturally responsive teaching as using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2013, p.50.). The hope for all teachers is to capture the minds of their children, as educators we must learn how our students learn, adapt to their skill set and channel our curriculum to their strength.
Politicians claim that Accountability is needed. Dylan Wiliam wrote that “The logic of accountability is deceptively simple”(110) He goes on to say that “students attending higher quality schools will (by definition) have higher achievement than those attending lower quality schools, so that the differences in quality of schools will result in systematic differences in achievement between schools”(110). Yes indeed accountability is needed. It is needed for those who pay for education (tax payers) and the people who are educated (the students). The institutions that regulate education should be held accountable for the policies they enact as well as the government that approved those actions. “Of the total variance in mathematics achievement of 15-year-olds in the United States in 2004 only 8% was attributable to the actual quality of the education provided by the school, the results in science are similar” (111). This is an indictment of the American school system, it points out that standardized testing is in fact inaccurate and unnecessary.
I reported that my school was guilty of “‘fairyland’ multicultural education” (Nieto & Bode, 2008, p. 2). We hold dinners, culture days, and special programs to bring awareness to different cultures, but we don’t go any further than that. This course has given me countless tools that can be used to make my school and classroom better for students. The school that I teach at has a high percentage of students who live below the poverty line and who speak English as a second language. Countless research has been done about students in both categories. Students who live below the poverty line tend to do worse than students at a wealthy school (Bainbridge & Lasley, 2002). This understanding about students living in poverty should drive instruction in the classroom. As a teacher, it is my job to inform and discuss with my colleagues strategies for better educating these students. Most importantly, there must be a belief that these and all students can learn if teacher use various teaching strategies (Bainbridge & Lasley, 2002). This understanding about students living in poverty should drive the efforts at my
Nelson, S. W., McGhee, M. W., Meno, L. R., & Slater, C. L. (2007). Fulfilling the promise of educational accountability. Phi Delta Kappan, 88(9), 702-709. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/218481883?accountid=32521
Students who are enrolled in elementary schools with a diverse population usually develop an understanding of insights and perspectives of children from different backgrounds and learn to function in a multiethnic, multicultural environment (Morrissey, 2014). Therefore, students need to learn how to interact in diverse environments. Teachers face challenges of making lessons and instructions “culturally responsive” for all students to avoid favoritism (Griner, 2012). Some students’ cultural backgrounds may have a negative impact on them in a modern classroom (Burt, 2013). It is imperative for elementary school teachers to be knowledgeable of different cultural beliefs and practices to help students adjust to traditional classrooms (Nigma, 2015). Defining the
Diversity in classrooms can open student’s minds to all the world has to offer. At times diversity and understanding of culture, deviant experiences and perspectives can be difficult to fulfill, but with appropriate strategies and resources, it can lead students to gain a high level of respect for those unlike them, preferably from a judgmental and prejudiced view. Diversity has a broad range of spectrums. Students from all across the continent; students from political refugees, indigenous Americans, and immigrants bring their cultural and linguistic skills to American classrooms. Students not only bring their cultural and linguistic skills, but they bring their ethnicity, talents, and skills.
The concepts included in providing a more diverse, multicultural education are requiring teachers to review their own issues and prejudices while expanding their knowledge of the many cultures that make up the classroom. These efforts help the educator recognize the various individual and cultural differences of each student, as well as gain an understanding on how these differences impact the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon individual and cultural difference research and why diverse students struggle to succeed in school. Furthermore, I will share some instructional approaches I could implement in the classroom to accommodate diverse students. Finally, I will discuss the responsibility of educators in addressing the issue of how our o...
Lee, J., & Reeves, T. (2012). Revisiting the impact of NCLB high-stakes school accountability, capacity, and resources: State NAEP 1990-2009 reading and math achievement gaps and trends. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34(2), 209-231. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1018478080?accountid=14789
In conducting her research, the author understood that she needed to describe key issues of culturally diverse students, recommend a curriculum approach to address the issues, and discuss the challenges and benefits expected. In reading Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Issues in Education (2010), s...