How Do We Help Long-Term ELL’s & How Does Having ELL’s Affect A Teacher’s Evaluation?

What is being done to help Long-Term English Language Learners and what does effective intervention look like?

Over the last few years, I’ve had quite a few students who have been in American schools since kindergarten. I teach at the Middle School level and some of these students cannot read beyond a 2nd or 3rd grade level. By the time they reach me, they feel feel they are “held hostage” in ESL and are very upset to spend ANOTHER year waiting to be released. They want to be in classes with everyone else, do not want to be identified as “ESL” and they tell me that they are stupid. What is really heartbreaking is when there are high school students in this situation. They give up, fail their classes and are at risk for dropping out of school.

In NYC we are learning by some half baked professional development, and drive by 10 minute observations as part of using the Danielson Rubric. It seems impossible to me that any ESL teacher could achieve any of the two highest ratings, both which require seeing a great deal of high-level student oral response and conversation.

Is the Danielson rubric being used in your school? Is it, along with the Common Core Standards, the national future? I believe she developed this for teachers to learn about improving their teaching. In a supportive environment, the potential as tool to encourage improvement is good. But for evaluating teachers it seems a poor fit.

I am getting rather unhappy teaching a beginning class of ESL and noting the near impossibility of getting either of the top two ratings. What have other teachers thought of that rubric? If verbal response is not easy, the teacher has failed to engage the class, it seems to say.

Please keep my identity anonymous if you choose this question to post. My school administration is using it to demoralize teachers.