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“In this day and age, with the diaspora of English-language learners
across the nation, it behooves us to prepare all teachers to work with
ELLs,” Ms. Barrera said this week.
Ms. Barrera “is not one who has been on the regular scene on the
national policy level,” but she is well known in the fields of teacher
education and bilingualism and biliteracy, said Kris D. Gutiérrez, a
professor of literacy and learning sciences at the University of Colorado
at Boulder and the president of the Washington-based American
Educational Research Association.
Filling a Void
Ms. Barrera is charged with reinvigorating an office that hasn’t had a
permanent political appointee as director since Margarita Pinkos, a
former school district administrator from Palm Beach, Fla., resigned in
May 2008, during the administration of President George W. Bush.
Some observers say Ms. Barrera is inheriting a position that doesn’t
have much influence because the oversight and monitoring of funds
from Title III, the section of the No Child Left Behind Act authorizing
money for English-language-acquisition programs, was moved out of
the English-language-acquisition office, or OELA, and into the
elementary and secondary education office at the end of the Bush
administration.
In the 2½ months that Ms. Barrera has been in her new job, her
“prime targets” for integrating the ELL agenda so far have been the
Education Department’s office of elementary and secondary education
and the office of special education and rehabilitative services, she said.
She noted that she has a “close relationship” with Thelma Melendez,
the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, and
someone whom experts on English-learners point to in the Education
Department as understanding the education needs of such students.
Ms. Barrera also has been working with the Education Department’s
Institute of Education Sciences to shape research on ELLs. For
example, she said, a study is getting under way that examines how
English-language learners are being identified as having special needs.
She said the IES plans to produce a practice guide on how educators
can meet the needs of ELLs who have special needs.
One way she plans to do that, she said, will be to highlight how money
from Title III can be used to prepare ELLs for careers in the STEM
subjects: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. She also
envisions that OELA’s small discretionary-grant program for
professional development can play a larger role in preparing teachers
to offer high-quality science instruction to English-learners.
She added that such students can benefit from learning academic
language for science in both English and their native language.
Ms. Barrera said she views bilingual education as a viable option and
“will talk about it.”
Ms. Gutiérrez predicted that Ms. Barrera “is not going to be trapped in
the old discourses and battles.” She noted that Ms. Barrera designed a
teacher-preparation program at Texas State University that required
all participants to become certified to teach either bilingual education
or English as a second language.