Urban Schools Spotlight

• NCCRESt has published its latest online module on Culturally Responsive Literacy. If your schools are teaching literacy to highly diverse populations of students, your faculty needs this module to understand the changing definition of literacy and its role in each of the core content areas.
  
  All the materials for presentations (e.g., see slide, right) and collaborative learning activities are organized into 3 academies that focus on:
  • Defining Culturally Responsive Literacy and the multiple purposes of literacy in students lives
  • Exploring features of Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction
  • Crossing boundaries of cultural differences in the classroom by creating literacy experiences for all students
  
  Download this important module here. If you wish to order a printed version of this module, you may access our online order form by clicking here.
  
  NCCRESt wishes to thank Suzanne Arnold, faculty member at the University of Colorado Denver, for her important contributions to this module.
• NCCRESt's State Profile of Efforts to Create Culturally Responsive Educational Systems in Wisconsin:
  This state profile, the first in a four-part series that will examine the efforts of states to create culturally responsive systems, provides a snapshot of Wisconsin's efforts to address the disproportionate representation of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in special education. The report explores the various elements related to the development of culturally responsive systems including:
  • Educational outcomes
  • General and special education policy and practice
  • Broader contextual factors impacting the experiences of students, families, and educators
  To access the Wisconsin State Profile, please click here.
• Practitioner Brief: Building Collaboration Between Schools and Parents of English Language Learners: Transcending Barriers, Creating Opportunities
  We at NCCRESt believe that all parents are a vital source of support for increasing student engagement and developing culturally responsive practices. Unfortunately, families of students who have been identified as English Language Learners (ELLs) have historically been viewed from a deficit perspective. Our newest Practitioner Brief extends our work of building culturally responsive educational systems to include ways to build collaborative relationships with parents of students who have been identified as ELL.
  Let's make the choice to create environments that facilitate the involvement of all parents. To do this, we must imagine school engagement as something based on the varying experiences, strengths and needs of parents and students. Access this Practitioner Brief here.
• Practitioner Brief: A Cultural, Linguistic, and Ecological Approach to Response to Intervention with English Language Learners
  In order to meet the requirements of the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act), school districts around the country are working to develop early intervening services. The most widely used model for delivering early intervening services has been the Response to Intervention model (RTI), which prescribes a three-tiered model of academic support within the general education setting.
  Of course, we, at NCCRESt, support the theory of this model; however, as we look through the lens of culturally responsive practice, we also feel compelled to consider how best to implement this model in a way that will provide equitable educational opportunity for students who are English Language Learners.
  Our newest Practitioner Brief— A Cultural, Linguistic, and Ecological Approach to Response to Intervention with English Language Learners— addresses this concern in a thoughtful and practical manner. This brief identifies guiding questions for service providers who determine whether assessment and instruction are linguistically and culturally congruent for the student’s level of language proficiency, asking them to consider of the student’s progress in relation to her “true peers” with regard to language and cultural background. The authors have also created a useful flowchart to help practitioners to implement RTI interventions appropriately for students who are English Language Learners.
  This brief is available online at http://nccrest.org/Briefs/Framework_for_RTI.pdf
• Dr. Alfredo Artiles, Edward Fierros and Amanda Sullivan presented Shifting Landscapes: ELL Special Education Placement in English-only States (Artiles, Sullivan, Fierros, & Klingner, 2008) at the American Educational Research Association 2008 annual meeting. The authors compared trends in ELL special education placement that occurred before and after language support programs were drastically reduced in Massachusetts, Arizona and California. The paper reported preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the UCLA Civil Rights Project. The authors are currently completing analyses about the educational experiences of this emerging population. Specifically, Artiles, Fierro and Sullivan are examining the impact of English-only initiatives on Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) placement patterns, and opportunities to learn (e.g., discipline referrals/suspension/expulsions, proportion of certified teachers, and teacher-student ratio). Contact Dr. Artiles at alfredo.artiles@asu.edu if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the presentation.
• Amanda Sullivan, Anne Smith, and Elizabeth Kozleski presented Understanding the Current Context of Minority Disproportionality in Special Education: Federal Response, State Activities, and Implications for Technical Assistance at the American Educational Research Association 2008 annual meeting. This presentation highlighted data on disproportionality from the 2007 State Performance Plans (SPPs), which are submitted by states as a way to provide information on their progress towards implementation of Part B and describe how they will improve such implementation. Kozleski and Sullivan conclude that while disproportionality has consistently been documented in a number of studies, considerably less attention has been given to conceptual and contextual issues, and even less to federal, state, and district responses and their outcomes. Attention to these dimensions of the institutionalization of disproportionality over time may help the field to focus on the unintended consequences of how special education is constructed in buildings.
      To access the 2007 State Performance Plan (SPP) Analyses, visit the Regional Resource and Federal Center Network (RRFC) at http://www.rrfcnetwork.org/content/view/248/358/
• March was National Nutrition Month. The American Dietetic Association created the campaign to provide education and information about making healthy choices in food and exercise. Their website offers games and quizzes to test your knowledge and provide information about health and nutrition. Nutritional understanding, meal planning and physical fitness are important factors that impact the well-being of children and adults. To make this a daily practice, families can take care of their health together by making meal time educational. You can plan, shop and cook together. After meal time, you could go outside and play a game, take a walk or ride bikes. Healthy living is contagious. The more informed your decisions are about eating and exercising, the more you can encourage others to make healthy decisions.
• NCCRESt's newest Practitioner Brief — A Cultural, Linguistic, and Ecological Approach to Response to Intervention with English Language Learners — addresses a culturally responsive approach to RTI in a thoughtful and practical manner. This brief identifies guiding questions for service providers who determine whether assessment and instruction are linguistically and culturally appropriate for the student’s level of language proficiency. In addition, the brief considers student progress in relationship to peers with regard to language and cultural background. The authors have also created a useful flowchart to help practitioners to implement RTI interventions appropriately for students who are English Language Learners.