Team-Teaching Helps Close Language Gap

The St. Paul, Minn., school district has gained notice for its success in educating a large population of students of Hmong heritage who are learning English.

St. Paul, Minn.

In the St. Paul public schools, “pullout” teaching is frowned upon. Instead, “collaboration” is the favored method when it comes to teaching English-language learners.

The approach—a mandate from the central office—seems to be working. For three of the past four years, the district has made adequate yearly progress for its English-language learners under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. And it has done so with a population that is primarily Hmong, a Laotian ethnic group that was first resettled in the Twin Cities in the late 1970s after the Vietnam War. As recently as two years ago, the district received more Hmong students from a camp in Thailand.

Michael D. Casserly, the executive director of the Washington-based Council of the Great City Schools, says the St. Paul district is “amongst the best” of 65 urban school systems in nearly closing the achievement gap between English-language learners and native speakers, based on his organization’s...