Teaching for Equity in Complex Times

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 issues:

• the degree of academic struggle that is generative for student learning and the point at which such struggle becomes counterproductive
• the holding of high expectations for all learners and the provision of differentiated, student-centered learning experiences
• the CCSS emphasis on engaging students around more complex text and the contested determination of what constitutes complexity in text and in teaching
• the influence of high-stakes accountability on school norms and practices, including teachers’ interpretations and enactment of new national standards
• the performance pressures placed on teachers in today’s educational policy context

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.