Megan Hopkins

Fully Accounting for English Learner Performance: A Key Issue in ESEA Reauthorization

This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law’s capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations put forth in this article focus on monitoring both current and former ELs, establishing time frames for the attainment of English language proficiency, and setting expectations for academic achievement that are reflective of English language proficiency level and time in the state’s school system.

Organizing for Instruction in Education Systems and School Organizations: "How" the Subject Matters.

Teaching, the core technology of schooling, is an essential consideration in investigations of education systems and school organizations. Taking teaching seriously as an explanatory variable in research on education systems and organizations necessitates moving beyond treating it as a unitary practice, so as to take account of the school subjects implicated in the work. Building on and extending earlier work, in this paper we examine subject matter differences in how one education system (Local Educational Agency) and its elementary schools organize for instruction in the core elementary school subjects. Specifically, this paper explores how education leaders and teachers in one local American school district interact with one another with respect to advice and information about teaching and learning in literacy, mathematics and science. We examine similarities and differences in school staff members’ advice and information networks and consider how these differences relate to the formal organizational infrastructure intended to support instruction.

Intra- and Interschool Interactions about Instruction: Exploring the Conditions for Social Capital Development.

Although social ties are a necessary condition for social capital, there is a dearth of research on the factors associated with the existence of such ties among school staff. Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined the role of both formal organizational infrastructure and individual characteristics in shaping advice and information interactions about instruction among school staff within and between schools. Our findings from social-network models showed that, while individual characteristics were associated with within- and between-school ties, aspects of the formal school organization had larger effects. Moreover, having a subject-specific leadership position most strongly predicted between-school ties. Our analysis of interview data supported and extended these findings, showing that leadership positions worked in tandem with other aspects of the organizational infrastructure, such as organizational routines, to influence school staff members’ interactions about instruction.

Organizing English Learner Instruction in New Immigrant Destinations District Infrastructure and Subject-Specific School Practice

In the context of shifting demographics and standards-based reform, school districts in new immigrant destinations are charged with designing infrastructures that support teaching and learning for English learners (ELs) in core academic subjects. This article uses qualitative data and social network analysis to examine how one district in the midwestern United States organized EL instruction. After describing the district’s infrastructure for elementary EL education, we examine how this infrastructure supported teachers’ work practice—the practices in which teachers engage with one another—as operationalized around instructional advice and information networks. Findings reveal that teachers’ opportunities to learn about EL instruction varied significantly by the school subject and that these differences were directly related to the way in which the district built its EL educational infrastructure.

Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

Marı́a was a fifth grade student when the authors met her in a study of immigrant child-language brokers. Her family immigrated from a farming community in Mexico to a Chicago suburb where there were limited bilingual resources. Marı́a’s mother did not speak fluent English, and Marı́a’s teachers did not speak Spanish, so Marı́a often served as a translator during parent–teacher conferences. How did Marı́a navigate her role in an event often considered the cornerstone of home–school communication (Hanhan, 1998)? In this article we share what we learned from our longitudinal research, which is reported in more detail in previous studies (see Garcı́a–Sánchez & Orellana, 2006; Orellana, 2009). We hope these recommendations will help teachers understand the complexities of translation, and how to facilitate parent–teacher conferences when their students serve as translators.

Schoolhouse Teacher Educators: Structuring Beginning Teachers' Opportunities to Learn about Instruction.

While few would disagree that a key component of educating teachers to teach happens on the job, research rarely explores the schoolhouse as a site for teacher education. This study thus focuses on inservice as distinct from preservice teacher education and explores how beginning teachers’ learning about mathematics and literacy instruction was supported within 24 elementary schools in two midwestern school districts. A mixed methodology was used in this exploratory study, including social network and interview data analysis, to examine beginning teachers’ advice- and information-seeking behaviors related to mathematics and literacy. Findings revealed that formal organizational structures inside schools were critical for shaping beginning teachers’ opportunities to learn about instruction, including grade level teams and formal leadership positions.

Beliefs in Context Understanding Language Policy Implementation at a Systems Level

Drawing on institutional theory, this study describes how cognitive, normative, and regulative mechanisms shape bilingual teachers’ language policy implementation in both English-only and bilingual contexts. Aligned with prior educational language policy research, findings indicate the important role that teachers’ beliefs play in the policy implementation process. However, findings also reveal several other dimensions of the policymaking process that contribute to the coupling of language policy and classroom practice, including district-level policy, administrative oversight, and teacher training policies. This study thus offers an institutional view of language policy implementation that accounts for teachers’ beliefs in a more nuanced and realistic way. Results from the study suggest the need to respond to both individual- and systems-level policy mechanisms—and the interplay between them—when designing school systems that address the educational needs of English language learners, whose presence is increasing in districts and schools across the United States.

Assistive Technology for Students with Visual Impairments and Blindness

This chapter provides (a) an overview of visual impairments and blindness, (b) explanations, examples, and summaries of research findings on assistive technology-related assessments and assistive technologies for pre-academic learning, reading, writing, mathematics, and science, and (c) discussion of implications of research findings for use of assistive technology with students with visual impairments and blindness. The research summarized suggests the use of assistive technology with students with visual impairments and blindness has the potential to improve many student outcomes related to academics and learning via enhancement of existing sight abilities and/or engagement of other senses (e.g., hearing) and abilities (e.g., oral language). In addition, research findings suggest the extent and quality of assessments are critical determinants of long-term assistive technology implementation outcomes. Discussion of the implications of research findings includes recommendations for practice in assessment, selection of assistive technologies, teaching and encouraging assistive technology use, and prevention of technology abandonment. The chapter concludes with description of areas in need of future research.

The Politics of Immigration and Education

The United States has endured multiple periods of intensely virulent nativist sentiment and policy, from the Know Nothing movement of the 1850s, to the decades-long stretch leading to and resulting from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, to Operation Wetback in the 1950s. If the first months of the Trump presidency are any indication, the nation may well be entering yet another such period. The Trump administration’s immigration agenda is expansive. Within days of his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order closing the U.S. border to certain individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and suspending refugee admissions for 4 months. The response from both courts and communities was swift, with the courts stepping in almost immediately to halt implementation. In June 2017, the Supreme Court allowed parts of a revised ban to go into effect, allowing the exclusion of visa applicants without a “bona fide” connection to the United States. Trump has also cut in half the number of refugee visas the United States will offer in 2017, severely limiting access to those arguably most in need. Although some questions remain regarding whether Trump will be able to follow through on his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border, it is clear that he has plans to significantly increase border militarization. His administration has also taken steps to limit immigrants’ appeal options to significantly speed up deportations.

Shifting the Zone of Mediation in a Suburban New Immigrant Destination: Community Boundary Spanners and School District Policymaking

This paper explores the context of reception for immigrant students and English learners in one medium-sized suburban school district in the northeastern United States. Using qualitative methods, the authors describe how, despite a troubling context of reception emerging from a normative and political community context that harbored resentment toward the new immigrant population, a community-based organization whose members served as boundary spanners between the school district and the community helped prompt district leaders toward more equity-minded policies. Given increasing culturally and linguistically diverse student populations in suburban school districts across the United States, findings from this paper have important implications for community engagement and school district policymaking.