Teaching for Equity in Complex Times: Negotiating Standards in a High-Performing Bilingual School

by Jamy Stillman, Lauren Anderson, John Luciano Beltramo (Primary Contributor)

In schools serving high concentrations of bilingual learners, it can be especially challenging for teachers to maintain commitments to equity-minded instruction while meeting the demands of new educational policies, including national standards. This book details how one school integrated equity pedagogy into a standards-based curriculum and produced exemplary levels of achievement. As the authors illustrate, however, the school’s dual commitment to bilingual education and standards-based reform engendered numerous complex tensions. Specifically, the authors describe teachers’ attempts to balance demands for rigor and content coverage within their high-performing school and with their diverse student population. They identify specific tensions that emerged around the following This timely book illustrates what can happen when a school’s teachers embrace equity pedagogy while navigating policy-related pressures. It offers a cogent counternarrative to traditional accounts of standards-based reform, especially for emerging bilingual students.

240 pages, Hardcover

Published April 28, 2017