Denver Post – by Yesenia Robles
Colorado policies around teaching non-English speakers should include teacher preparation requirements and funding for pre-school aged English learners, according to a report released Tuesday by the Education Commission of the States.
The report, the ECS and National Experts Examine: State-level English language learner policies, outlined recommendations for state and federal policies.
The Education Commission of the States put together a panel of experts to create the recommendations.
Among its main points, the report emphasizes that providing extra funding to districts educating these children, does not alone make a difference, and that “ELLstudents benefit when states require teachers and administrators to be trained in ELL instruction methods and cultural competency.”
“Addressing the needs of English language learners has been a top education priority of mine,” said Nevada Gov. and ECS Chair Brian Sandoval in a news release. “The recommendations in this ECS report will help inform better policy decisions in key areas — such as teacher preparation and adequate funding — and ultimately improve academic performance of students learning English.”
In Colorado, some 14 percent of Colorado students are English learners, according to the most recent numbers from the Colorado Department of Education.
Colorado, like many other states, does not require teachers to have special training or certification in order to teach students who are non-English speakers, but school districts can decide to require a certification.
Denver Public Schools, which teaches more than 20 percent of the state’s English learner population, is moving to require all teachers to earn a certification for teaching English-learners as part of changes to a 30-year court order.
DPS created the curriculum for different levels of the certification in partnership with the University of Colorado Denver.
The state Department of Higher Education, just this week, approved a new Bilingual Specialist endorsement for teaching students that are fluent in Spanish or Navajo, from the Fort Lewis College Teacher Education Department. The school will be the only one in Colorado to offer the Navajo-language endorsement.
“In many classrooms in the west and especially in the region, between 30 and 50 percent of students can come from homes that don’t speak English as their first language,” said Dr. Richard Fulton, director of the FLC Teacher Education Department in a released statement. “The ability to offer a teaching endorsement in bilingual Spanish and Navajo is a great benefit to P-12 schools in our Four Corners region.”