Mary Jo Marion (Latino Education Institute) was invited to be a presenter for a webinar hosted by Education Week, a nonprofit news source that covers current events in the U.S. education system. She showcased LEI’s approach to improving outcomes for English Language Learners (a term she re-dubs “emerging bilinguals”) as a model for cities and schools nationwide to emulate.
Marion was joined by Shannon Varga, a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for Promise, a research center for America’s Promise Alliance. The webinar was moderated by Corey Mitchell, a staff writer for Education Week.
The webinar, titled “Helping English-Language Learners Graduate from High School,” facilitated “a conversation with researchers and educators to explore how to build bridges, not barriers, to success for English-learners,” according to Education Week.
From Education Week: “Across the country, graduation rates for English-language learners lag behind those of their native English-speaking peers. New research from the Center for Promise, the research arm of America’s Promise Alliance, finds that schools and educators who want to boost the graduation prospects for this fast-growing subgroup of students should take stock of what is happening in their lives both inside and outside the classroom. Drawing on student data and interviews with English-learners, the researchers explored why the students may struggle to achieve English proficiency and identified steps that educators can take to knock down barriers ELLs encounter on the road to earning a diploma.”