Students with significant cognitive disabilities may participate in states' alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). A growing number of students with significant cognitive disabilities are also English learners (ELs) whose family may use another language in the home. They may only be exposed to English in a school…

Background/Context: Relying largely on high school measures of home language use, the literature examining immigrant incorporation in schools provides contradictory evidence of home language effects on educational outcomes. More recent research has demonstrated that home language use is dynamic and thus it is important to examine the implications…

Utilizing Ruiz's (1984, 1995) language orientation and language policy work, this ethnographic study compared two intercultural bilingual education (IBE) schools located in two Wichí-Weenhayek communities on both sides of the Argentinean-Bolivian border. We examined Wichí-Weenhayek and non-Indigenous teachers' profiles, teacher-student…

Part enthnograpy and part testimony, this book analyzes a school setting and community from the standpoint of a group of immigrant mothers (las madres) in South Central Los Angeles who were concerned about the education of their children and the violence in their communities. Written in both the first and third person, in Spanish and English, the…

This introduction provides the background for this special issue by first describing the US-Mexico border, a fascinating context in which to research issues related to Spanish-English biliteracy and multilingualism. We present main points in the prevailing discussion within the field of literacy studies about issues of multilingualism and…

This study hypothesized that HISD prekindergarten participation consistently correlated with better educational outcomes for students. Taking into account students' age differences through kindergarten enrollment, propensity score matching controlled for students' background characteristics. Three cohorts of students in this study were eligible or…

In recent years, a boom in immigration and high birth rates among the foreign-born population has led to significant growth in the number of children in the United States who speak a language other than English at home. This demographic change presents a challenge to the public school system, where English proficiency is central to a child's…

In this paper, we compare the bilingual/language education policies of Arizona and Washington to show that state-level language policy plays a critical role in shaping the appropriation of federal language policy [No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Title III] and how different state-level language policies impact the district level of policy…

The 25th European Association of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL) conference was hosted by Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, from the 23rd to the 26th of August 2017. The theme of the conference was "CALL in a climate of change." The theme encompassed the notion of how…

In modern education, inequalities are assumed to be reduced by a redistribution of knowledge between the affluent and able on one side, and the poor and unable on the other. This article investigates ways in which the distribution of futures becomes naturalized in everyday school practices where equality is perceived as a goal rather than a…

Substitute teachers are an important part of students' K-12 educational experience and can have an impact on students' learning. However, without proper training or guidance, substitute teachers are often asked to merely monitor students as they complete worksheets or watch videos. Finding substitute teachers for foreign languages (such as…

In this critically reflective article, we share our perceptions of the epistemologies that shape our own understanding of successful ESL education and that of a school district that asked us to help redevelop its ESL program. Our differing epistemologies, ours critical and aimed toward social justice, theirs built on what we describe as neoliberal…

Growing numbers of schools are offering dual-language classes, where teachers split instruction between English and a second language. The numbers of dual-language-immersion programs have been steadily growing in public schools over the past decade or so, rising to more than 2,000 in 2011-12, according to estimates from national experts. That…

In this article, we utilize the concepts of conceptual metaphors, cultural models, and master myths to discuss the ways by which three new immigrant children, native speakers of Spanish, were developing conceptions of English language, literacy, and learner's identities. Our findings point to 3 main metaphors that were often implicit in the school…

Title I, Part A and Title II, Part A funds are provided to Houston Independent School District (HISD) through the 2015 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), also known as Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Both funds focus on enhancing student achievement: Title I, Part A provides supplemental support for…