Los Angeles and Seattle became the next stops for a series of national conversations on English learner education that the U.S. Department of Education is hosting as part of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.
In Los Angeles the assistant deputy secretary and director of the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) Rosalinda B. Barrera Ph.D led the conversation.
The talks are a part of a series of three dual conversations. In February the first conversations were held in Dallas and Chicago. Los Angeles and Seattle were the next two cities with New York City and Charlotte remaining for April.
According to Barrera the conversations address multiple goals: they help create future policy and it helps her office communicate outreach and connect with the field again.
The OELA has been without a permanent director for about three years thus it was important for Barrera to reconnect with people all across the country.
The information provided by the participants of the six conversations will be recorder. Common themes will be looked for and this will be presented to the department of education so as to “hopefully and ultimately help to shape an informed policy Barrera said.
So far, in Dallas, some of the common themes that have come up are better teacher preparation for assisting English language learners, a need for more effective strategies for engaging and involving the parents of English language learners, and better standards and assessments for English language learners.
Although the information from the conversation in Los Angeles had not been fully processed yet, Barrera was able to mention some of the things she heard, citing the need to think about dual-language and multi-lingual programs, parental engagement, and more open-minded discussions in the future.
At Pepperdine, part of what Jumpstart does is work very closely with English language learning children. Interestingly enough, some of the goals that Jumpstart has, when it comes to working with these children, overlap with some of the common themes heard in the national conversations thus far.
As to the potential elimination of funding for AmeriCorps, which would have an impact on the Jumpstart program at Pepperdine, Barrera was unable to comment specifically on the situation. However, she did say that currently, We are facing a very tough economic period in our nation and that it is necessary to, Learn to do more with less.”
“Currently the federal government is seeking to cut out duplications of programs Barrera also mentioned.
At this time, the US government is being closely monitored by both the Democrat and Republican parties. The government has to be thoughtful and judicious about what to cut so as to not cut essential programs so as to not let, quality of education not to suffer during these times Barrera said.