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There are a lot of assumptions about kids who arrive in the
upper grades. The first thing that is assumed is that they
have been going to school consistently all their lives. The
second is that the quality of their education is similar to
what we have here. With those assumptions, the powers that
be make mandates that are inconsistent with the needs of the
students. So sad.

On 11/07/09, secondary ESL teacher wrote:
> 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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