Message from CORE Steering Committee Member and Elementary Teacher Norine Gutekanst:
An urgent alert has gone out to supporters of bilingual/ESL and early childhood education to go to Springfield on Wed. & Thurs. June 17 and 18. IAMME (Illinois Association for Multilingual Multicultural Education) is asking for people to testify at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) in defense of allocating funds for bilingual/ESL education and early childhood. ISBE has only about half of the money they requested for FY 2010 to distribute to a variety of programs. If you are an educator or parent who can speak about the needs of your school or community for bilingual/ESL or for early childhood programs, your testimony is very important.
The central message for Board members and ISBE staff members to hear is how important bilingual/ESL services are at your school/district and that the elimination, or even a reduction of these critically needed dollars, would be disastrous and have a negative impact on the instructional services offered to English language learners.
The meetings will take place at 100 N. First Street, 4th floor Board room Springfield, Illinois, 62777. Based on the agenda posted at http://www.isbe.net/board/meetings/2009/june/schedule.htm there are two times where people could present testimony:
*Wednesday , June 17 at the Finance & Audit Committee meeting scheduled for 12:45 pm. Public participation will take place from 1:35 – 3:30 p.m. – an extended period of time.
*Thursday, June 18 at the Plenary Session scheduled for 10:15 am. Public participation will take place from 10:30 – 11:00 a.m.
For more information, please contact josie@iamme.org
4 Comments
How does one join CORE? Your link for joining does not work. Why can´t I see what I am writing? The letters are tiny and light. Thank you for your work and I hope you make some changes on your page so teachers can unite and communicate.
Love the blog mate, this one is going in my bookmarklist.
You need a paypal account. Otherwise you can send a check, $35 for teachers, $20 for PSRPs and associate memberships. Please send it to CORE
2522 W. 40th Street
Chicago, IL. 60632
Bilingual / Bicultural Educational programs, (Dual Language being one of the better forms of BL / BC Ed.)
and ESL, that has always been the main component of Bilingual Education programs, is here to stay in Chicago, and in Illinois. And it won’t fall by the way side, like the obliterated schools that have been closed, and that have been subsequently privatized, while the sheepish CTU has looked stood by. ESL programs alone, when there are multiple languages in the school setting, and not twenty speakers of the same language, are worth fighting for also, just as they have always been.
We will fight for it in Springfield, fight for it in Washington, and take the fight wherever it has to be taken. We have Lau vs. Nichols under our arms, and tons of research to prove that we know what works for our ELL students. There has been nothing more important that has happened to me in my life, than having become bilingual, and my own three students all having benefited from becoming bilingual in the Chicago Public Schools, graduates of Morgan Park HS, Kelly HS, and Kennedy HS.