Moving English Language Learners to College- and Career-Readiness: On May 7-8, 2009, AYPF is hosted a field trip highlighting the Rio Grande Valley region’s successful strategies for moving its English Language Learners (ELLs) along a pathway to college- and career-readiness. Elements of success include cross-systems collaboration, academic and social supports, innovative approaches to language instruction, and community engagement in building a college-going culture. The goal is for trip participants to be able to identify policy implications for better serving an ELL population. The rapid growth in the population of ELLs nationwide, as well as the persistent achievement gap between ELLs and all public school students, has recently brought this group into the spotlight in debates over education policy, accountability and school improvement. The Rio Grande Valley (RGV)region of south Texas, located along to the US-Mexico border, provides a particularly strong context to observe successful strategies employed—as well as the challenges faced by—educational systems with large populations of ELL students. The RGV comprises 43 districts, many of which are small, rural school systems. The region has 150,000 identified ELLs, comprising approximately 40% of the overall student enrollment. The region has a student population that is 97% Hispanic, and 85% low-SES. Several school districts in the RGV have received “Recognized” or “Exemplary” ratings by the Texas Education Agency, and multiple high schools have been identified as top schools by US News & World Report and Newsweek. The region’s institutions of higher education have also recently been recognized as among the top 10 public colleges and universities in enrolling and graduating Latino students in the country. This trip will help national policy leaders understand how the schools in the region are supporting the success of their largely disadvantaged population, with an emphasis on ELLs at the high school level and in the transition to postsecondary education.
(Field Trip)
