TESOL 2012 deadlines are fast approaching
TESOL
Early registration for the TESOL Annual Convention & English Language Expo has been robust. If you haven't registered yet, be sure to register before 1 February to save more than $100 off the on-site rates. And don't forget to book your hotel by 21 February. The Crown Plaza Philadelphia Downtown is now offering the best rate, just $159 a night. For more information on the TESOL convention, please visit the convention Web page.More

TESOL CALL-IS seeks volunteers for Electronic Village at TESOL 2012
TESOL
The Computer-Assisted Language Learning Intersection seeks volunteers for the Electronic Village at the TESOL 2012 convention. Each year, conference attendees provide assistance to EV event coordinators and managers for special events that are ongoing throughout the conference. Volunteering also provides an opportunity to network with tech-savvy CALL-IS members, meet and greet visitors to the EV, and assist event participants with computers and software programs. CALL-IS asks that you commit to at least two hours. If you are attending the TESOL convention and would like to volunteer, please contact Sandy Wagner, with your preferred time(s) and date(s).More

TESOL responds to president's State of the Union Address
TESOL
In his third State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama highlighted two important points about education: the critical role it plays in the U.S. economy and the vital role that teachers play. The role that education plays in supporting the U.S. economy cannot be overstated, and it's important that the United States reverse the current trend of cutting funding for education. Instead, the United States should follow the example set by other countries and increase its investment in education for learners at all levels, especially English language learners. To read the full text of TESOL's response, please visit TESOL's website.More

In Race to the Top, the dirty work is left to those on the bottom
The New York Times (Commentary)
Even if you think the Obama administration's signature education program, Race to the Top, will not help a single child in America learn more, you have to admire its bureaucratic magnificence. First, it has had a major effect — reaching into most public schools in America — while costing the Obama administration next to nothing. The Education Department will spend about $5 billion on the program, and even if you're thinking, hey, I could use $5 billion, consider this: New York won the largest federal grant, $700 million over the next four years. In that time, roughly $230 billion will be spent on public education in the state. By adding just one-third of one percent to state coffers, the feds get to implement their version of education reform. More

Performance assessment making a comeback in schools
eSchool News
Performance assessment is what teachers do every day when they grade students' projects and assignments, but often this work is not part of the high-stakes system that determines whether students are ready to graduate — or whether schools as a whole are making progress. More

Learning in multiple languages
San Diego Union-Tribune
In little over a decade, the number of dual-language programs in San Diego County has skyrocketed from nine in 2000 to 48 today — with 18 of them opening since 2009. This is one of the few areas in public education that is experiencing unprecedented growth amid California's relentless fiscal crisis, which has forced sweeping cuts in schools throughout the county and state. The boom in language schools is meeting increasing demands of parents who want their children prepared for top colleges, promising careers and a global society.More

Justice for English language learners
Education Week (commentary)
Projections suggest that English language learners will comprise more than 40 percent of elementary and secondary students by 2030. The fact that too many schools are struggling to make Adequate Yearly Progress because of "subgroups" of English language learners does not mean this particular group of students are holding the school back; rather, it is the system that is preventing this group of students from moving forward.More

The Latino gap: Preschool helps, but not enough are enrolled
Fronteras Desk
The pre-kindergarten classroom at Richard J. Rundle Elementary School in Las Vegas is stocked with books and toys. In the middle of the room, there is a colorful alphabet rug, where 4-year old students sit cross-legged. Teacher Deanna Macaulay writes a sentence on the white board with the students' help. More

San Diego State scholar to oversee California's ELL efforts
Education Week
Recently, California has a new honcho to oversee statewide efforts to improve education for the state's 1.5 million English language learners. State schools chief Tom Torlakson has tapped Karen Cadiero-Kaplan, a professor at San Diego State University, to lead the California Department of Education's English Learner Support Division. Cadiero-Kaplan, who chairs the Department of Policy Studies in Language and Cross Cultural Education at San Diego State, has also been a classroom teacher and taught ESL at the community college level.

Editor's note: Karen Cadeiro-Kaplan is a former president of CATESOL and member of the TESOL Affiliate Leadership Council. TESOL congratulates Dr. Cadiero-Kaplan and wishes her all the best in her new position.More

State higher education spending sees big decline
The Associated Press via Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State funding for higher education has declined because of a slow recovery from the recession and the end of federal stimulus money, according to a recent study. Overall, spending declined by some $6 billion, or nearly 8 percent, over the past year, according to the annual Grapevine study by the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University. The funding reductions, seen across nearly every state, have resulted in larger class sizes and fewer course offerings at many universities and come as enrollment continues to rise.More

In India, the challenge of building 50,000 colleges
The Christian Science Monitor
India: To become an economic powerhouse, India needs to educate as many as 100 million young people over the next 10 years — something never done before.More

Even with educated workforce, US college, career issues loom
Education Week
If there were ever an argument for investing in career- and college-readiness, the impact of the economic crisis in recent years provides one: In 2009, unemployment globally was more than twice as high for those who did not complete high school compared with university graduates. In the United States, it was three times as high — 15.8 percent for high school dropouts, compared with 4.9 percent for college graduates. Those numbers offer an indicator that even though the United States overall has one of the most educated workforces in the world, its lead is slipping.More

English proficiency classes in New York shrink as demand climbs
The New York Times
Every year, New York attracts more and more immigrants from around the world seeking new jobs, new opportunities, new lives. Many of them, not surprisingly, arrive not knowing how to speak English well, inhibiting their search for work and their ability to assimilate. But as the demand for English-language courses has soared, the supply has dropped, according to a report.More

Educating immigrant students a challenge in US, elsewhere
Education Week
One out of every five children now enrolled in a U.S. public school speaks a language other than English at home. Many of them were born in other countries. Some have had little or no formal education before coming to the United States, even among those who are the age of American middle or high school students.More

Why America needs good teachers
The Huffington Post
A new study authored by Harvard and Columbia University professors Raj Chetty, John Friedman and Jonah Rockoff shows that teachers can change the trajectory of their students' lives. Students of capable elementary and middle school teachers not only have higher standardized test scores, they are more likely to attend college, have a lower incidence of high school pregnancy and earn more as adults.More

Study: Educational apps for young children growing rapidly
The Hechinger Report
Long connected to schools by offering discounted computers and other equipment to students and teachers, Apple seems to be getting even more intertwined with education — in and out of the classroom. The tech giant announced its entry into the textbook market — and this at a time when a day doesn't seem to go by without a new story about schools buying up batches of iPads. More

MIT research: The advantage of ambiguity in language
Medical News Today
Most think that language evolved as a way for people to exchange information, however, linguists and other communication students have long reasoned over why language evolved. Famous linguists, amongst them MIT's Noam Chomsky, have debated that language is actually badly designed for communication and state that it is only a byproduct of a system that may have evolved for other reasons, maybe for structuring our own private thoughts.More

Government seeks help to stop teacher-led cheating
USA Today
The Obama administration is creating a manual showing how schools can fight teacher-led cheating on standardized tests, asking educators to help stomp out "testing irregularities." The move comes 10 months after a USA Today investigation found high erasure rates on standardized tests in many District of Columbia public schools, and six months after Georgia's governor released findings of a major investigation that found widespread cheating in Atlanta public schools. The U.S. Department of Education says it will host a symposium on cheating and publish "best practices" recommendations on how to prevent, detect and respond to cheating in schools. More

Technology for Teachers
ASCD
ASCD Express's Tech for Teachers column, by guest columnist Jason Bedell, uses both text and a tutorial video to encourage teachers to bring web technology into their practice in simple but meaningful ways that can contribute to student engagement and learning.More

Panel debates how to measure quality in teacher training
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Three months after the Obama administration unveiled its plan for remaking teacher education, a group of educators, union leaders, accreditors and Education Department officials are meeting in Washington to craft new rules for the programs. During two days of debate, panelists here have grappled with how to define and measure "quality" in teacher preparation, and how to identify programs that are falling short.More

Petty differences mask consensus on teachers
The New York Times (Commentary)
Popular culture has surely produced no more satiric a view of that great scourge of public progress, the Apathetic Teacher, than last year's bluntly titled comedy "Bad Teacher." In the film, Cameron Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a junior high school teacher so incompetent that she shows movies all day and steals the answers to a state-administered exam. Perhaps you watched the movie wondering whether it had been subsidized by a political action committee aimed at dismantling the teachers' union. More

Teachers take to Twitter to improve craft and commiserate
The Washington Post
After her first year teaching history in a public high school in the District, Jamie Josephson was exhausted and plagued by self-doubt. Teaching had been more grueling than she ever expected. Law school began to sound appealing. Then she stumbled onto Twitter. In the vast social network on the Web, she discovered a community of mentors offering inspiration, commiseration and classroom-tested lesson plans.More

Why the iPad won't transform education just yet
CNN
Apple's announcement that it would be introducing a new iPad textbook experience and iBooks authoring tool presents huge opportunities for technology in classrooms. The company is selling textbooks from McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin at a price comparable to print versions, and it's presented an unprecedented opportunity for teachers to compile their own materials. But Apple has a long way to go — and logistical hurdles to clear in tens of thousands of schools — before it dominates K-12 classrooms the way it has done the music industry.More