A couple of weeks ago, I was given a book by my
administration called Double the Work. In the book, it
looks at the fact that brand new high school ESL students
are not only required to learn all of the content that the
other students are, they must also learn approximately
50,000 vocabulary words, many of which they do not know in
their home languages. The book then address the obscurity
of the expectation that these kids can do this in four
years (or less). The book did not tackle the subject of
students arriving with little or no education, it actually
only addresses those arriving at or close to grade level.
This describes less than half of our new students, the
others stopped going to school around 6th grade.
The book describes programs in schools which have created
six year programs for new ESL high schoolers, giving them
time to learn both the language and content. I noticed
from the curriculum descriptions that they also were
addressing the fact that a large majority of these kids
arrive years behind in math.
The books said that the biggest problems implementing these
plans were NCLB graduation rates and money.
We have a meeting Tuesday. I am curious about your
thoughts on a separate six year graduation plan for these
students. Any thoughts, ideas, concerns suggestions.

By the way the book was discussing students who arrive as
adolescents. It was not talking about kids who arrived at
7 or 9 years of age.

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