For WBEZ in Chicago, Adriano Cardona-Maguidad tells the story of how the UNO Charter School Network, now Acero Schools, has made the transition away from the English immersion approach to educating its mostly Latino student body.
As Cardona-Maguigad explains, in 2014 the state began requiring all charter schools to comply with laws mandating support for English language learners, and in 2015 the Chicago Public Schools alleged that UNO schools were not doing that. After first adopting a bilingual education model, the network is now piloting a dual language model.
In a 2016 article for Education Next, Joanne Jacobs wrote about changes in instruction for English Language Learners across the U.S. in the wake of No Child Left Behind and the Common Core–mostly changes away from bilingual instruction and towards English immersion or dual immersion. “Learning English: Accountability, Common Core, and the college-for-all movement are transforming instruction” appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of EdNext.
The Spring 2013 issue of Education Next included a forum on how schools can best educate Hispanic students featuring articles by Juan Rangel, past president of the UNO Charter School Network, and Nonie Lesaux of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
— Education Next
