Dr. Elena Izquierdo displays the same book, in Spanish and English, that are important tools in educating bilingual and two-way language learners.

 

Dr. Elena Izquierdo ponders high levels of ELL policy that could bolster the Obama Administration

By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place

EL PASO, Texas — This is what you should understand about Dr. Elena Izquierdo, associate professor of teacher education at the University of Texas at El Paso. She has raised her level of expertise in the area of bilingual education, two-way dual language learning, teaching English as a Second Language to policy level.

She is a policy maven and knows so much about educating students who are English Language Learners.

Izquierdo has remarkable acumen like the experts invited into the President’s inner circle of advisors. She is a much sought-after expert on issues pertaining to educational equity. The nation, according Izquierdo, is grappling with how to educate the third generation of American students as English Language Learners. The discussion is not solely with educating children of immigrants. What it strongly says is that there have been missed opportunities in the educational system across the nation in educating English Language Learners.

Generations of students are falling through the cracks, meaning they dropout. Their numbers are swelling. Former students exist without being proficient in English or academically determined in their native language. This is happening at a time when the world is increasingly more global and increasingly more demanding, competitive if you will, in the marketplace of talent.

Here at UTEP practices have been in place for a while to remedy the malaise found in the data of a system that is failing to educate those students who show up needing to speak English as a Second Language. There is this gap in sending out bilingual students who can ply their trades and forge ahead in the global economy.

On any given day, Izquierdo is out about in the state of Texas or across the nation advocating and consulting on best practices for educating English Language Learners. She conducts English as a Second Language institutes for teachers working with English Language Learners in mainstream classrooms. Such presentations in state include how to implement the Texas Reading Initiative in Spanish.

In the recent past, Izquierdo has keynoted at the Utah Association of Bilingual Educators annual meeting. She provided testimony to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) public hearings on Testing for Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners. The number of student English Language Learners in the United States has increased 65 percent to 5.1 million just since 1994, according to NAEP and the factsheet provided by Izquierdo.

The day before this interview she had just returned from travel and would be leaving again in a couple of days for a conference in Lerado. In the email exchange for setting date, time and place for the interview, she references the work of Marcia Jarmel.

Speaking in Tongues is a documentary that follows four dual language learners — an African American, Latino, Asian and white student — being instructed separately in Chinese and English. Speaking in Tongues is directed and produced by Jarmel and Ken Schneider for their San Francisco-based PatchWorks films.

“It’s an excellent movie,” Izquierdo said during the interview. “It shows you that we are not preparing our kids in schools for the global economy and the competition that is out there. It shows the journey of a student who is learning Mandarin Chinese in his education. He is learning in both languages and his culture and travels to China.

“It shows another student who is Latino and he is in this dual-language program,” she said. “It’s beyond just learning languages and just going to school. It’s preparing them for once they get out there in the world and have to compete. It’s got a wonderful African American mom whose son is part of the Mandarin Chinese and English program. It’s incredible — incredible.”

Speaking in Tongues and the four students and their documented families give a synopsis of the big picture that is facing schools in the U.S. “Together, they represent a nexus of challenges facing America today: economic and academic inequities, de facto segregation, record numbers of new immigrants and the need to communicate across cultures,” the producers say on their Web site.

Destiny has led Elena Izquierdo down a career path that pushed aside any multiple career avenues she could have taken in linguistics.

Izquierdo was born in El Paso, daughter of a second generation American Mexican mother and an immigrant father from Mexico. Her academic and career journey began here with a degree in linguistics from UTEP. Her Master’s degree thesis at UTEP was “English Determiners, Their Acquisition and Use by Speakers of Japanese, Persian, and Spanish.”

She would eventually defend a dissertation: Identification, Assessment, and Placement Practices of Limited English Proficient Students: A Case for a Regional Approach to Establishing Standards. Her successful defense led to a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics/Bilingual Education from Georgetown University.

It was in Washington. D.C., where Izquierdo became an administrator who shaped policy in bilingual education, policy for teaching English Language Learners and serving as principal of a two-way dual language school.

“Washington, D. C., in the early ‘80s, was not prepared for the kind of educational influx that saw all these students who spoke a language other than English,” Izquierdo recalled. “That’s where my work started. I wrote a grant to work with schools that had these students. In the grant, it included instructional support for middle school, high school and elementary. It was instructional support in the sense that it provided students native language instruction in their content areas and literacy while they received English as a Second Language.

“We did not have enough teachers in the district that were trained in language or were bilingual to work with this population,” she said. “High schools were not set up to work with large numbers of students who were coming with this kind of background.”

Indeed, amended immigration laws at that time allowed more immigrants from western hemisphere and the District of Columbia became a port of entry for immigrants from Central America. Izquierdo, the grant writer, became an assistant principal at Adams Elementary School and then principal of Oyster Bilingual Elementary School.

Parents of Spanish-speaking led the hue and cry for a bilingual school and began a public relations campaign in the community until the school districted responded favorably to their demands. What is now called Oyster-Adams Bilingual Elementary School, according to the historical narrative, was a dying school with a predominantly white population and declining enrollment.

Those same records tell that when Oyster was selected, the principal balked at the idea of a two-way bilingual program. That principal was reassigned. Parents interviewed new principal candidates and forwarded their pick to the superintendent who accepts their recommendation and hired the new principal.

The “new” bilingual school could handle 240 students. The attendance zone, according to the historical narrative, was “stretched deep into heart of the growing Hispanic community,” resulting in a student population with the highest number and percentage of Hispanic students in city.

Oyster became “a nationally recognized dual language school and in that school we had black, white, Latino and Asian students,” Izquierdo said. “I had a student from Iceland. They were all learning in two languages. Everybody, students and teachers, developed an appreciation and respect for all cultures and all languages.

“Yet outside the school, you had all kinds of cross-cultural miscommunication going on,” she said. “In that school, the program was to develop two languages to learn in their academic content regardless of who you were or what your first language was or what your ethnicity was. You had kids graduating that looked like you and me (black and Latino), white and Asian, who were perfectly bilingual in two languages.”

No matter how well Oyster Bilingual Elementary School was performing, the District of Columbia Public Schools still struggled to provide adequate curriculum for all of its English Language Learners.

“I became director of Minority Language Affairs for the district and we developed a corrective action plan because of a citation from the Office of Civil Rights,” Izquierdo said “The Office of Civil Rights slapped D.C. with this citation and said you will provide access to education for about 10,000 kids at that time. These kids were all over the city and so we were under the gun.

“The district had to do it. We had no choice,” she said. “I did the plan for five years. We expanded programs. We trained teachers and administrators and we recruited. We opened up new programs. We go into compliance. That is where I made a commitment to stay in education. I was there five years in that position and then I came back home to El Paso.”

Here in El Paso, as opposed to Phoenix, a place that many in leadership positions were declaring as “ground zero” in the battle over immigration and immigration reform, it is a much different atmosphere. To an observer, it is to be likened to “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.” There is that sense of arrival here.

There is a “there” here. UTEP is one of six colleges designated a Model Institution for Excellence for “increasing the quality and quantity of under-represented minorities who earn science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) baccalaureate degrees and go on to pursue graduate degrees in these fields.”

In force here is a five-year, $5 million “Teachers for a New Era” research grant from New York-based Carnegie Corporation. The grant is intended to push UTEP toward becoming “a national model for teacher education programs at urban universities, especially those serving a Hispanic-majority student population.”

“El Paso students live and study in the world’s largest binational metropolitan area,” Dr. Diana Natalicio, president, says on the school’s Web site. “They pursue cultural, social and academic opportunities not available on most university campuses. More than 75 percent are Mexican-American and another nine percent commute to the campus from Ciudad Juarez.”

Formerly known as Paso del Norte, Juarez is just across the border in Mexico. More than 2.4 million people live in this region. The number climbs to 2.9 million people when nearby Las Cruces, New Mexico is considered.

“Since I left the District of Columbia, I have been here at the university,” Izquierdo said. “While at the university, I became chair of the Department of Teacher Education and I was responsible for all teacher preparation, K through 12. Multicultural education was one of the courses that we worked very hard to make sure that all students took.

“We are one of the top teacher preparation universities right now,” she said. “We produce the highest number of bilingual teachers nationally. We are a Latino Institution — a Hispanic Institution of higher education.”

Izquierdo is faculty in Teacher Education.

“Along with that,” she said, “I work with many states, many districts all over the country and many districts in this state on issues that deal with biliteracy, bilingual education, preparing mainstream teachers, preparing administrators and superintendents all over the country on issues that deal with educating language minority students. It has to do with everything in multicultural education, diversity — everything.

“Most people, when they think of diversity, they think of the good stuff, you know the food, the traditions, all the fun stuff, but we are dealing with the very critical components of diversity which have to do with schooling, which have to do with race and language and equity and making sure that schools represent the demographics of the students that they serve. Language for the Latino is a big priority. They need to learn in a language that they understand while they learn English.”

Izquierdo said, “For blacks it’s race; it’s equity. For Jews, it’s religion. When we say diversity, it comes in — and I know I am preaching to the choir when I am talking to you — but we know it comes in at so many levels and so many ways that prevent kids from getting a good education. That’s where it’s all at.

“Right now you find, for example, people blaming the number of English learners coming into our district as the reason for not making the mark in education. Well, it’s not the numbers; it’s the preparation. It’s not that kids are not ready for school. Schools are not ready for kids with all the diversity. So we have a lot of work to do still in terms of diversity. When people hear multicultural education, they feel it’s all touchy, feely stuff. It’s everything. It’s absolutely everything to educate kids.”

Izquierdo looks through the telescopic lens of policy and sees President Barack Obama. With his support, she knows systemic improvements will get an extended hearing at the policy table.

“I think we have a long ways to go in terms of putting it into practice in schools, in policy, in monitoring it — everything, which is why I am so encouraged by the new administration, our new administration under President Obama,” she said. “I know he has got a tough road ahead, but people understand these issues are going to be right there supporting him.”

The question merits repeating. What is UTEP doing well in preparing teachers to teach bilingual and ELL students?

“It’s not just the preparation of teachers, but it’s our university’s mission is to be able to serve the borderlands which represent diversity,” Izquierdo said. “Latinos, Hispanics, border issues — all of that. Our president, Dr. Diana Natalicio, wants every college to frame its individual goals by colleges directly linked to those mission statements.

“When it comes down to the College of Education, we are preparing teachers, any kind of teacher you are going to be, you will be taking course work that pertains to bilingual education, educating language minority students, multicultural education beyond the celebrations in culture,” she said. “I mean the real issues in education. Looking at our education leadership, preparing our administrators, looking at special education — everything.

“In fact, we just wrote a new doctoral program,” Izquierdo said. “We just got it. It’s a Ph.D. in teaching, learning and culture that focuses on those issues. People are coming from all over the place, who want to get into our program and people here in our own community are responding.

“Anybody that goes into our Ph.D. program has got to take, as part of the core, issues in biliteracy, issues on the borderlands, diversity, critical pedagogy, which is really a unique Ph.D. program here unlike any that are going on anywhere nationally. After that, they focus on whether or not it is math, technology, teaching, reading, leadership, whatever it is, but whatever it is with that core intact.”

In the strategic Plan for 2008-2015, Natalicio articulates a vision that moves UTEP forward toward being “internationally recognized as a preeminent model for urban, public research universities in the 21st Century” that “positions UTEP at the forefront of higher education’s changing paradigm.”

“We are moving a lot and we are working towards becoming a Tier I research institution,” Izquierdo said, continuing to expound on what UTEP is doing well in preparing teachers to teach bilingual and ELL students.

“Our doctoral program has really made a big impact on that,” she said. “Our president, who is the leader of all of this, has really moved that agenda forward in getting all of the colleges, the College of Science, College of Health, College of Liberal Arts, College of Education to focus on those goals, objectives and missions that deal with the borderlands, diversity, Hispanics, equity — all those issues.

“Teacher preparation is one piece of it — a very big piece,” Izquierdo said. “We prepare all these teachers and the other states come and take them away. Our students graduate very knowledgeable on those issues with a different perspective on what educating kids is. It’s not just about books and instruction, what I call random acts of improvement and prescribed programs. It’s beyond that. We are doing a lot. We live in the area where we are doing our research. We are a part of it. We are immersed in it. We are it.”

During the Natalicio presidency, UTEP has widened access and there to assist non-traditional students along the path of achievement. One objective UTEP has is to “continue raising the aspirations and pre-college preparation of entering students by working closely with school districts and El Paso Community College.

Focus on learning English is not enough in the expereince of educating English Lanaguage Learners
 

“Our president opens the door,” Izquierdo said. “Anyone can get into this university. She also tells us that we have to bend over backwards, not to water down, but to support our students to help them to access that level. It’s easy to say that I held all my kids to the same high standard, but that’s not the challenge. That’s not responsibility. Our responsibility is to get them to those high standards. That’s the difference. That’s why our Ph.D. is called ‘Teaching and Learning’ because we take a collaborative journey with our kids. That’s what dual language is and not just learning two languages. It involves so much more than just language.”

Before the “Teaching and Learning” doctoral program at UTEP, there was Teachers of Literacy and Content (TLC).

“TLC is what I came up with before our Ph.D. and it was Teachers of Literacy and Content,” Izquierdo said. “That’s working primarily with secondary teachers so that they can understand second-language acquisition and understand that kids don’t have to learn English. They have to learn in English. There is a difference there.

“Please quote me in saying that,” she said. “It’s not enough to learn English. The focus is not learning English for our kids. The focus is learning in English. They have to go beyond learning English. They have to have their academics so they can make it through school. When you think about it that way, you raise the bar in terms of expectations of what we need to teach them and not just English.

“They need math, science, social studies,” Izquierdo said. “They need all the Carnegie Units to graduate. That’s the whole focus, so making high school teachers, working with them because they didn’t go through our teacher preparation program before we put in those courses now that everybody has to take. You got teachers out there all over the country that don’t know how to work with English learners.

“And the diversity and multicultural piece is missing because, in many instances, they don’t want to know,” she said. “They will tell me ‘I am not studying to be an ESL teacher or bilingual teacher. I teach biology or I teach social studies or I teach math.’ And I say, ‘No you don’t, you teach kids and these are the kids in your classroom. Your job is to make the instruction being delivered comprehensible to them so they have access to education.

“Changing that paradigm but also providing them with the professional tools and professional development they need to make it happen was an objective of Teaching Literacy and Content. They didn’t get that in their preparation,” Izquierdo said. “We have to make sure, and our president has said, we have to make sure we are putting out the kind of educators, counselors and leaders that our demographics need right now to meet those objectives. If we are not addressing these needs, there is this viscous cycle of unprepared people. We are trying to change that right now.”

Need for paradigm shifts are supported by the current 5.1 million English Language Learners in our schools against staggering projections. By 2015, English Language Learner enrollment in U.S. schools will reach 10 million and by 2025, nearly one out of every four public school students will be an English Language Learner.

“There is a lot of pressure on higher education right now nationally that they become more connected, more grounded in terms of what is going on in our schools,” Izquierdo said.

Looking ahead, Izquierdo publishes data — The State of ELL Affairs — on her Web site from the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition & Language Instruction Educational Programs (NCELA). This support office in the U.S. Department of Education is authorized under Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

“English Language Learner, where are we? We have a lot of work to do,” she said, responding to a question. “But we are at the forefront right now in terms of making sure we are serving them. States are upside down right now because of the administration saying that we will include them in assessment. We haven’t included them for the longest time in assessment. Now that they are included in assessments, well, our schools don’t look too good. We have been excluding them and when you don’t assess someone for accountability what that says is that you don’t have to worry about teaching them the whole curriculum.

“Our ELLs right now and this is important to understand, they are not immigrants,” she said. “The number of ELLs we have in the United States, the majority of them, three-fourths of them, are first, second and third generation U.S. born. What does that say? Well that says these kids have been in our schools all this time and we still can’t get it together. That is why I say to you that we are now testing them and so we are now responsible for them. Schools are upside down right now and they don’t know what to do.

“There is a lot of rethinking going on right now,” Izquierdo said. “Schools right now are having to rethink what they are doing with your English Language Learners. You can’t blame the immigrants, so that’s a Lou Dobbs for you right there. Blame the immigrants. They are not immigrants. They are first, second and third generation. I am a second generation English learner here in the states. My mother was first generation and my father was an immigrant. There are people like me that still can’t speak English. Somehow or another they slipped through the cracks — a majority of them.

“All the way from Pre-K to higher education we are having issues with equity, access and really preparing our students to succeed,” Izquierdo said. “The good thing now is we are on the page. The English Language Learners are on the page. You can’t hide them anymore because of accountability. You got to test them and when they are testing and not passing, what is going on, especially kids who have been in the system since kindergarten and they get to high school and can’t pass. What have they been doing all this time?”

For sure, there is much to ponder as there is much that needs to be strategized and executed. The arena offers engagement. Izquierdo is an executive board member of the Alliance for Multilingual Multicultural Education (AMME). She extends an invitation to the first conference.

Looking ahead, the AMME Inaugural Conference will be held May 19-21, 2010 in the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque. Izquierdo will be a presenter there, presenting out of “The State of ELL Affairs!”

Will the same destiny that has led Elena Izquierdo down a career path that pushed aside any multiple career avenues in linguistics allow her to return to Washington, D.C and find her saddled to a position in the Obama Administration?

“Obama, I would beg him for a job to be right there to help with the work that needs to get done,” Izquierdo said. “To help him, coming from the trenches, being an English Language Learner myself at some point, coming from the school districts, working in the school districts as someone whose hands were tied sometimes, as someone who became a leader, as someone who became a director and then led the district into compliance, you understand how complex education is and how it is not just a program.

“It’s not just learning English,” she said. “It’s not just the ELL teachers. It has to do with the entire district. It’s systemic. It’s the focus. It’s inclusion. It’s finance. It’s the budget. It is high standards for everybody. It’s access. You know, it’s everything. You have to understand the processes that happen in districts. You have to understand why things don’t get done in districts. We can’t beat up teachers so much that they are not teaching kids. Guess what? If the leadership in the building does not have it as a priority it is not going to get done the right way. Guess what? If the superintendent does not have that as a priority or delegates it as something, it’s not going to get done.

“All the reasons that you have people who are very knowledgeable who go into districts that are qualified to do the work that needs to get done and what happens, they can’t do it. Why? It’s the politics. It affects the praxis; it’s the politics and the praxis.”

Dr. Elena Izquierdo has the expereince and expert status to be a lead policy advisor in the administration of President Obama.