THE EDUCATION ALLIANCE @ BROWN UNIVERSITY
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THE EDUCATION ALLIANCE @ BROWN UNIVERSITY
Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners |
Ofelia García has had a distinguished academic career committed to the practice of teaching and the education of teachers in urban communities, especially of bilingual teachers. She is the Dean of the School of Education at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, where she founded the Center for Urban Educators in September 2000. García came to Long Island University in 1997 from City College, City University of New York. She has published and edited extensively in the areas of bilingualism, sociology of language, U.S. Spanish, the education of language minorities, and bilingual education. García is the editor of a new journal, Educators for Urban Minorities, published by Long Island University Press. In 1999 she was appointed by the New York State Regents to serve on the New York State Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching. Among her professional honors are a Fulbright Scholar Award to Universidad de la República, Montevideo (1996), and a Spencer Fellowship from the National Academy of Education (1985-88). She was the first recipient of an annual award in her name, The Ofelia García Spirit of the Community Award for Vision in Adult Education (1994).
Barry Rutherford has over 30 years of experience in education, having been a classroom teacher, site-level and district administrator, and researcher. His career and primary interest have been focused on at-risk student populations, especially those who are placed at risk due to language and culture. He is currently the Coordinator of CREDE's Research & Demonstration Schools projects in California and Hawai'i, and is the Team Leader for the development of a model of school reform based on localization as a key factor in school reform efforts.
Ana Celia Zentella received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in Educational Linguistics. She is a Professor in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, and a member of the doctoral faculty in Linguistics, Anthropology, and Developmental Psychology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Dr. Zentella is a central figure in the study of U. S. Latino varieties of Spanish and English, and bilingualism in schools, families and communities. Her book, Growing up Bilingual: Puerto Rican Children in New York (Blackwell, 1997), won the 1998 Book Prize of the British Association of Applied Linguistics, and the 1999 Book Award of the Association of Latina and Latino of the American Anthropology Association.
Sofia Aburto is a Senior Research Associate with WestEd’s Northern California Comprehensive Assistance Center in Oakland, CA, specializing in the areas of data-based inquiry and services for English learners within the context of school reform. Ms. Aburto has participated in a number of research studies examining the impact of federal funding on services for language minority students and has assisted numerous schools and districts in conceptualizing, developing, and implementing assessment and evaluation systems for the purpose of improving services for ELLs. She recently served as Deputy Director of a national research study of schools receiving Title VII Comprehensive School grants (funded by the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs). At the state level, she has assisted the California Department of Education staff in providing technical assistance to schools and districts serving ELLs and in selecting outstanding bilingual programs and practices for exemplary status.
Suzanne Ashby works as a Program Specialist at the Southwest Education Development Laboratory (SEDL). She has worked for 30 years as a teacher, trainer, consultant, and program coordinator in both early childhood and elementary programs. Much of her work has focused on teachers whose students are linguistically and culturally diverse.
Cindy Ballenger is a literacy teacher and a staff member of the Chèche Konnen Center at TERC. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Chèche Konnen Center is spearheading a five-year national reform initiative to improve elementary and middle school science to language minority students. Ballenger’s background is in linguistics and teacher research. She has taught children from many backgrounds in various capacities for many years and worked with other teachers who do the same.
Beverly Boyson is a researcher at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), where she has conducted research on newcomer programs for the last four years. She has also participated in the evaluation of programs for English as a Second Language (ESL) students and has conducted elementary school foreign language assessments.
Lourdes Burrows is a first-generation American, having emigrated with her family from Cuba in the early 1960s. She attended high school and college in New York City, started out as a teacher of Spanish, and became an Assistant Principal-Foreign Language/Bilingual/ESL, and has been a dedicated educator throughout her career. In early 1995 she was chosen by the Superintendent of Queens, New York, High Schools to help create a new high school to accommodate Queens’ burgeoning immigrant population. Currently, she is principal of the Newcomers High School. Burrows has served as Chairperson of the New York City Curriculum Framework for Languages Other than English (LOTE), and has helped develop the Multicultural Instructional plan for the Borough of Queens. She is an adjunct professor in the Elementary and Early Childhood Education Department at Queens College of the City University of New York, and teaches courses in Multiculturalism in Education and Bilingual Reading and Writing Methodology.
Mary Cazabon is director of Bilingual/ESL/Two-Way Language Programs in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work focus includes educational reform - promoting the integration of linguistic minority and language majority students, comprehensive evaluations, and encouraging strong parental involvement. Elementary programs in Cambridge feature shared language instruction in Korean, Mandarin, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. For the past few years, Cazabon has been involved in an Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) field-initiated research grant that examines bilingual educational reform in her district.
Nancy Cloud serves on the faculty of the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island. Previously she coordinated the M.S. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Bilingual Education Programs at Hofstra University and coordinated various federally funded projects at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Cloud holds graduate degrees in foreign language and bilingual/multicultural education, and is a former classroom teacher in developmental bilingual programs. She currently works with school districts that are implementing dual language programs. Her publications include Dual Language Instruction: A Handbook for Enriched Education (Cloud, Genesee, & Hamayan, 2000) and an Educational Leadership article, "Multilingualism is Basic" (Genesee & Cloud, 1998).
Francine Collignon coordinates programs at The Education Alliance which offer in-service and pre-service professional development for educators of linguistically and culturally diverse learners, and manages a research project examining the potential for school-community partnerships to enhance student achievement. She has worked for over thirty years in elementary, secondary and higher education classrooms, and in community-based organizations. Her work since 1976 with immigrant and refugee second language learners, enhanced by travel and study in Southeast Asia, addresses issues of language, literacy and culture in education. Collignon focuses on the under-representation of bilingual teachers in the nation’s teaching force through Career Ladder Programs assisting Southeast Asian prospective teachers. She is a member of this conference’s steering committee.
Dionísio DaCosta is a bilingual guidance counselor and transitional bilingual English (TBE) program Acting Director for the Taunton Public School System in Taunton, MA. He has worked as a bilingual guidance counselor for 15 years at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
Catherine Daley is a second grade bilingual teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. She has been a teacher researcher with the Bridging Cultures project since 1996. Daley has been very active in professional development as a teacher educator for the district’s credentialing program, as a school site mentor, and as a community liaison. Her ongoing projects involve Latino students’ home-school relationships and the development of greater academic success through better cross cultural understanding. In 1999, Daley received an award from the Los Angeles Educational Partnership for Excellence in Teaching. In 2000, she received confirmation from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
Ms. Marlene Carmen Diaz is the Assistant Principal, the Supervisor of the Foreign Language and ESL Departments, and International House at the DeWitt Clinton High School. She has taught Spanish at intermediate and high school levels.
Cynthia García Coll is the Harrison S. Kravis University Professor, Professor of Education, Psychology and Pediatrics, Chair of the Education Department, and the Mittlemann Family Director for the Center for the Study of Human Development at Brown University. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Harvard University in 1981. She has published extensively on the sociocultural and biological influences on early childhood development and on teenage pregnancy. She also serves on the editorial boards of many academic journals. She is currently a member of the MacArthur Foundation Network, "Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood." She is a member of the Committee on Racial and Ethnic Issues for the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD), which she chaired from 1991-1993; She currently serves as part of the SRCD Executive Committee. From 1994 to the present, she has served as the SRCD representative to the National Head Start Conference committee. García Coll has co-edited several books: The Psychosocial Development of Puerto Rican Women (1989); Puerto Rican Women and Children: Issues in Health, Growth and Development (1999); and Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Contemporary Mothers (1998). She also was a co-editor of the special issue for the journal Child Development entitled "Children and Poverty." She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Vivian Garcilazo is an elementary school teacher in a New York City alternative public school. In 1996-97, as part of a M. S. in education, she participated in collaborative research teams organized by Dr. Carmen Mercado. Garcilazo explored funds of knowledge of ELL students from community school districts in New York City. Her investigations included home visits and resulted in case studies designed to inform professional practice and curriculum development.
Ted Hamann is a research and evaluation specialist at The Education Alliance at Brown University. His recent research has examined facets of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) project: its roll-out in Maine and Puerto Rico; its responsiveness to English Language Learners; and the ways federal CSRD policy is mediated and adapted at the state, school and classroom levels. Hamann is co-editor of Education in the New Latino Diaspora (with Stanton Wortham and Enrique G. Murillo, Jr.; Ablex Press, 2001). He holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a M. A. in Anthropology from the University of Kansas. Hamann has worked as a bilingual adult literacy teacher and coordinator/trainer for a high school service learning program. He is a co-chair of this conference’s steering committee.
Else V. Hamayan is Director of the Illinois Resource Center in Des Plaines, Illinois. She received a Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, where she conducted research in Immersion programs. Dr. Hamayan learned, then taught, English as a foreign language in Lebanon. She has conducted teacher training internationally on issues of language and culture education, and co-authored Dual Language Instruction: A Handbook for Enriched Education. Hamayan has co-edited a book on assessment of bilingual students with special needs and has written on topics of literacy, second language acquisition, and holistic teaching approaches.
Josiane Hudicourt-Barnes taught in the Cambridge Public Schools in the Haitian Bilingual Program for many years and was a teacher-researcher with Chèche Konnen. She served as Bilingual Coordinator in the Boston Public Schools and conducted professional development with Boston and Cambridge teachers, largely in science teaching. Hudicourt-Barnes currently works at the Chèche Konnen Center and also consults with the Soros Foundation in Haiti.
Ester J. de Jong received her Master's in Language and Literature at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, specializing in language and minority issues. She received her doctorate degree in Bilingual Education from Boston University in 1996. De Jong has been working as the Assistant Director of Bilingual Education in Framingham, Massachusetts, for the past five years. In August 2001, she will continue her work at the University of Florida, Gainesville, as an Assistant Professor in ESOL. Her research interests include student integration for second language development, leadership in bilingual schools, and language policy.
Ms. Sheila Krstevski is the ESL Coordinator and member of the Development and Dissemination team at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York City. She has taught at DeWitt Clinton for ten years, during which time the ESL program has been transformed through collaboration among teachers and by raising standards.
Kim Uddin Leimer is of mixed Asian Indian and Anglo heritage. She grew up in New Jersey, where she attended Rutgers University and majored in Spanish language and literature. She holds a Masters' degree in TESOL from Teachers College, Columbia University, and has taught ESL to students in a variety of settings, including public high school, community language programs for recent immigrants, programs for business executives, and at the college level. She has also taught grades four, five, and six in an urban charter school. Leimer works as an applied researcher at The Education Alliance, where she focuses on issues of equity and diversity and teacher development. She is a co-chair of this conference’s steering committee. Her most important work, though, is as a mother to her two-year-old daughter, Sage.
Tamara Lucas, Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at Montclair State University, began her career as an ESL teacher in San Francisco. She subsequently received a Ph. D in Education from Stanford University, with a concentration in Language, Literacy, and Culture. Her research, teaching, and work with educators has focused on addressing issues of equity and quality in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Lucas’ publications include "Promoting the Success of Latino Language Minority Students," and a book, Into, Through and Beyond Secondary School: Critical Transitions for Immigrant Youths (1997). With Ana Maria Villegas, she has co-authored Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers: A Coherent Approach, forthcoming from SUNY Press.
Makna Men is a Senior Specialist/Equity Coordinator at The Education Alliance, Brown University, and serves as a liaison with Southeast Asian communities in the region. He came to the United States from Cambodia as a young man. Subsequently, he developed bilingual-bicultural capabilities that contributed to this success as a high school guidance counselor and, more recently, as a specialist providing assistance to pre-service and in-service teachers.
Carmen Mercado has been affiliated with New York City public schools her entire educational career, first as a student, and since 1988, as a faculty member at Hunter College of the City University of New York. She teaches literacy courses and supervises student teachers who work primarily in East Harlem. Mercado was an elementary teacher at one of the first dual language elementary school in the Bronx. Her most personally and professionally affecting experience has been collaborating with teachers, students, and families to identify and build upon sociocultural resources for learning in local communities.
Giancarlo Mercado is a fourth grade bilingual teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District. His involvement with Bridging Cultures work goes back to 1996, and involves research on home/school connections that improve student academic achievement. Outside the classroom, he is active as a mentor and teacher educator at the district and university levels. Mercado serves on several committees working with curriculum and policy reform at the school, district and state levels. He achieved certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in 2000.
Julie Nora currently works at The Education Alliance at Brown University. Her work focuses primarily on bilingual education and the educational of linguistic and culturally diverse students. She has taught ESOL at middle school, university, and adult education levels in California and Rhode Island. As past academic coordinator of an English language institute at Bryant College, she developed curricula and facilitated professional development of teachers of English language learners. Julie is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and received her M.A. in TESOL from San Francisco State University. She is currently pursuing a Ph. D. in education. Her research interests include identity and language acquisition, bilingual education, and political and social contexts of schooling. She is coordinator of this conference.
Maria Pacheco has worked in the field of bilingual education and ESL for 25 years as a teacher, administrator and university professor. Maria F. Pacheco has worked at Brown University since l992. She is program advisor and adjunct assistant professor in the Brown University Master’s Degree Program in Bilingual Education, ESL and Cross Cultural Studies, as well as the director of the New England Equity Assistance Center and of the Center for Equity and Diversity at The Education Alliance at Brown University. She holds advanced degrees in school administration and bilingual education. Prior to coming to Brown she served for eight years as the director of programs for immigrant students in Taunton, Massachusetts and as a Civil Rights consultant in the Massachusetts Department of Education. She has taught graduate courses on language acquisition and multicultural education at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Wheelock College, Rhode Island College, and Providence College. She has been a lecturer on language, culture and cognition in Israel, Brazil and Portugal. She is the Director of the Center for Equity and Diversity at The Education Alliance, which oversees the activities of the LAB’s national leadership area of teaching diverse learners, and is the main host of this conference.
Robert Parker works at The Education Alliance at Brown University. For over twenty years, he has been providing program development, training, and coaching, to teachers, principals and superintendents around issues relevant to meeting the academic and acculturation needs of English Language Learners. Previously, he also taught ESL through content classes to upper elementary and high school students.
Marica Pertuz teaches third grade at the AMIGOS two-way immersion program in Cambridge, MA. She has also taught at la Escuela Fratney, a two-way immersion school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and in a partial immersion program in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pertuz is a candidate for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification, a rigorous year-long assessment process.
Samboeun Pho has been an immigrant in the United States for 22 years, and has experienced many struggles with English as a Second Language. She has worked for six years at Bridgham Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, as a Special Education teacher. Ms. Pho became a teacher to serve as a role model and mentor for Southeast Asian children who are coping with similar struggles. She works in the field of special education because she recognizes the need for a liaison between immigrant parents, who might not understand the legal and educational issues pertaining to disabled students, and a school department that might not be familiar with Southeast Asian culture.
Dr. Odette Piñeiro Caballero has been the The Education Alliance’s State Liaison to Puerto Rico since 1996. In that position she has managed several research and development projects in Puerto Rico, including a study of the changing role of school directors occasioned by Puerto Rico’s 1994 law that switched all of the island’s schools to a site-based management model. Since 1998, she has coordinated the LAB’s technical support offered to the Puerto Rico Department of Education for the implementation of the federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration project (CSRD). Complementing her 80% position at Brown, she has been very active in a community connected learning partnership in a rural part of Puerto Rico and, for six months, she was the Director of Professional Development for the most dominant CSRD model currently being implemented in Puerto Rico. Prior to working for Brown she was Senior Diversity Planning Analyst and, later, Director of the first College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) at Pennsylvania State University. For CAMP, she designed and implemented collaborative leadership processes in and outside the institution to enable youth from migrant and seasonal farm worker backgrounds (Mexican, Dominican, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian) to have the opportunity to pursue a four-year college education. Her professional career has focused on creating bridges to insure ELL youth have equal access and participation to high quality teaching and learning environments. She earned her Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University.
Deborah Romeo is an eighth grade English and social studies teacher at the Edith Nourse Roger School in Lowell, Massachusetts. She has been a Lowell educator for seven years in both mainstream and ESL settings. Romero recently earned National Board Certification in Early Adolescence English Language Arts. She is an adjunct instructor in the field of language acquisition at Middlesex Community College, in an education program designed for Lowell paraprofessionals. Romeo is co-author of the English Language Arts Curriculum guides for her district, and facilitator for her school’s English Language Arts Study Group.
Jolane Roy is a seventh grade English teacher at the Dr. An Wang Middle School in Lowell, Massachusetts. Jolane has been a Lowell educator for twenty-four years. She serves on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Assessment Development Committee, where she advocates for the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse children. In her own district, Jolane has co-authored the English Language Arts Curriculum guides and served as a member of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Assessment. She is co-chair of her School Site Council and chair of the Faculty Steering Committee/Literacy Team.
Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco is a lawyer and social scientist whose work has focused on the study of change in educational organizations, the implications of education reform for disadvantaged students, the politics of education, the effect of immigration on schools, and more recently, immigrant integration policies. Prior to joining The Urban Institute, he served as a lawyer and policy analyst in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), where his principle assignments involved civil rights enforcement concerning elementary and secondary schools. He also evaluated magnet school desegregation plans for the Department. After his government service, Ruiz-de-Velasco returned to academic study in 1991, earning an M.A. in Education Administration and Policy Analysis and a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Stanford.
Craig S. Shapiro is an ESL/Bilingual Education Specialist at the Office of the Superintendent of Bronx High Schools. He was a teacher of English as Second Language at the award-winning DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York and a graduate adjunct professor at Mercy and Lehman colleges. He was instrumental in developing and implementing a successful English as a Second Language and Native Language Arts program that has enabled students to meet the new rigorous New York State English standards.
Shapiro has appeared in three New York State Education Department documentaries that highlight DeWitt Clinton's work with English language learners. He has also served on the New York State Education Department's invitational roundtable discussions on standards and students of English as a Second Language and English Language Arts. In addition, he has given seminars for The United Federation of Teachers, The Bronx High School Superintendency, and Manhattan College, on how to infuse technology and performance-based assessments into the language classroom.
Evangeline Harris Stefanakis is a faculty member in the Learning and Teaching Area at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her focus is Understanding Learning Challenges: Special Educational Issues. Also she is Senior Program Associate at Programs in Professional Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education where she is actively developing teaching and learning programs for schools in the US and abroad. Her teaching and consulting experiences are in bilingual, K-12 and special education in both U.S. and international schools. Stefanakis works with multicultural school communities on projects related to linking curriculum and assessment. Her roles as researcher, speaker, and writer focus on understanding how best to assess and teach children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Stefanakis’ most recent publications include The Power in Portfolios (IRI Skylight, 1997) and Whose Judgment Counts? Assessing Bilingual Children (Heinemann & Boynton, 1997). Stefanakis is a graduate of Tufts University, earned an M.S. in Special Education, Learning Disabilities and Behavioral Disorders at Lesley College, and received her Ed.D. degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Jessica Swedlow develops, coordinates, and edits numerous LAB products for print, video and online delivery. She produced and co-directed the "Student Voices" and "Voices of English Language Learners" videos and received a Rhode Island PEG award for excellence in educational programming for Public Access television. A graduate of New York City public schools and Queens College, City University of New York, Swedlow holds a Masters in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from Brown University. Before coming to The Education Alliance, she was an Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at Rhode Island School of Design, with specialties in performance studies and political theater. She has written extensively on interdisciplinary studies, educational change, and program development.
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