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Elementary Education
 
ITBE surveyed members of the Elementary Education Special Interest Group about what their primary concern is. As the chart below shows, many of the challenges revolve around assessment, either assessment in general or the PARCC or Access 2.0 tests.



What can be done to address these concerns? Some suggestions members offered in the survey include:

• Holding workshops, in particular a session on curriculum writing
• Being more informed and having more information about timing
• Professional development for all certified assessment administrators
• Creation of more resources
• More school funding in ELL/ BE

 One SIG member wrote this very useful suggestion:  
This is a fabulous idea and would be very appropriate to include here in the Link! Those who are interested are encourage to contact the Elementary Education SIG chair, Margaret Gigous at elemensig@itbe.org.
 
Secondary Education 
SIG members were asked to identify the model that best describes ESL/ELL instruction in their workplace.Below summarizes the results of survey respondents.

Selected comments:

• Too many students are rushed through the program because only their ACCESS scores are considered. Sometimes students advance from ELL 1 to ELL 3 or higher based on the 5.0 Composite on ACCESS. Their language skills are underdeveloped and they struggle in academically challenging classes.
• More professional development in the district needed; and a firm belief in multi-lingualism!
• I like how we talked about the need for a grassroots voice as ELL teachers. I would love to see a blog dicussing issues and advocacy, sharing ideas, etc. I often feel very alone, but I think we have a lot in common.

We didn't quite get enough reponses from Higher Education SIG or Adult Education SIG members to report on that yet. But stay tuned for more survey opportunities.