As the variety of state education agency (SEA) responses to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 demonstrates, different SEAs interpret the same federal educational policy differently. Nonetheless, little research has depicted how federal policies are changed by SEA-based policy intermediaries. Using an “ethnography of educational policy” approach, this article offers two illustrations of mediation processes at the SEA level: Maine’s and Puerto Rico’s initial attempts to implement the federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program. Both attempts show that the mediation process is inevitable and that its general direction can be predicted: Policies will be adapted in ways that better correspond with local problem diagnoses, understandings, and habits of action. The study leaves intact McLaughlin’s assertion that local negotiation and reframing of policy can be a source of improvement or added value. Such improvement is more likely if an expectation of mediation is explicitly accounted for and if what counts as improvement reflects local mores.
We use 3 brief educational biographies of students in Mexico who have previously attended public school in the United States to introduce this literature review on United States-Mexico transnational students. This article is also the first of several planned articles stemming from a currently ongoing, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia-supported research study. As such, the purpose here is to highlight some of the dynamics faced by students who need to negotiate 2 educational systems (the United States and Mexico) and who fit neither a classic United States immigrant typology nor the typical premises around which schooling in Mexico is organized.
Different worldviews, different histories of induction into teaching, presumed differences in responsibilities, and different emphases in pre-service and in-service preparation have all long contributed to enduring schisms that keep general education (or mainstream) teachers and English language support faculty from coordinating and finding common cause in their efforts. This division has been at the cost of impeding many English language learners' (ELLs) academic success. So, given that ELLs consecutively or concurrently negotiate these too-often separate schooling subworlds, it is imperative to overcome historical divisions and to conceptualize all teachers as needing (a) to be willing to see ELLs as part of their charge, and (b) to build the skills and capabilities to serve such students well. Although No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) has directed more attention to the academic performance of English language learners (ELLs) and former ELLs than ever before, it has not necessarily improved that performance. One important explanation for this is the difference in sense of professional task-who should teach ELLs, how ELLs should be taught, what ELLs need to know-that persists between English as a second language (ESL)/bilingual teachers and so-called mainstream teachers in many American school systems (Miramontes,
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