|
Matt Doyle , who previously was the assistant superintendent of innovation at VUSD , brought to the UC San Diego research team his district ’ s need for science-backed guidance to close the achievement gap stemming from low socioeconomic status and language barriers . About 65 % of the district ’ s students come from households that are at or below the federal poverty level , and 17 % are English learners .
“ For us to move the needle on literacy and numeracy , we needed to really inspect our practice and pedagogies and use the research in our own school environments to help us learn about our blind spots ,” says Doyle , now VUSD superintendent .
|
In the first three years of the UC San Diego-VUSD longitudinal studies , researchers followed children in six district classrooms , from transitional kindergarten to first grade . Their pioneering work received catalytic support from Richard Hertzberg and Carol Dean Hertzberg , Sandra Timmons ’ 81 and Richard Sandstrom ’ 72 , PhD ’ 79 and the National Endowment for the Arts . Those early investigations have spawned multiple streams of research that promise to transform how children learn in the classroom , how teachers experience teaching and how parents interact with the school . |
Family Bonding : Welcoming a home language , strengthening ties with families and creating more opportunities for dramatic play can boost the emotional , intellectual and social development of children . |
Equity for English Learners One initiative , dubbed STYLE or Strategies for Teaching Young Learners of English , was sparked by the concerns of VUSD administrators about the high proportion of the English learners who were being referred to special education programs . Of the 3,000 English learners in the district , 94 % come from Spanish-speaking families .
Rafael Olavide is VUSD ’ s director of multilingual education and oversees language acquisition programs for the district ’ s English learners . In most cases , he said , the referrals were related to speech and language rather than learning issues . “ I took note of the numbers and shared the information with my colleagues . That caught the attention of our partners at UC San Diego .”
It also struck a personal chord with Shana Cohen , associate professor in the Department of Education Studies at UC San Diego and a member of the research team . As the child of immigrants from South America , she grew up in a Spanish-speaking household and spoke very little English when she entered school in Oakland , California . She recalls feeling left out in the classroom , alone on the playground and unable to strike
|
26 SPRING 2024 |