Award-winning principal reassigned in wake of testing opt-out irregularities
Washington Post 
October 3, 2016

The award-winning principal of the Cora Kelly School for Math, Science and Technology has been reassigned in the wake of an investigation that found he instructed staff to tell the parents of low-performing students about their right to pull their children from state tests.

Brandon Davis, who was hired in 2008, won several accolades for bringing up test scores at Cora Kelly, an Alexandria school that serves mostly black and Hispanic students and where most students come from families living in poverty. Just last week, Davis was named Distinguished Principal by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

Davis was disciplined for his decision to selectively inform parents about how to pull their children from state tests, telling staff to call the families of students whose low test scores could hurt the school’s performance as it relates to state accreditation.

A small Va. community with racial lessons for a nation will host VP debate
Washington Post
October 3, 2016

FARMVILLE, Va. -- When Joan Johns Cobbs was 13, her older sister, Barbara, took an incredible risk. Fed up with shabby conditions at their all-black high school, Barbara Johns led the students on a walk-out to demand better education.

It was 1951, and the resulting court case became one of the pillars of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that ended school segregation nationwide. Farmville and Prince Edward County responded harshly, shutting down the public school system for five years, from 1959 to 1964, rather than let whites and blacks attend together.

Today, much has changed. There is a statue of Barbara Johns, who died in 1991, on the grounds of the state capitol in Richmond. Her former high school is now a civil rights museum. And on Tuesday, Farmville’s Longwood University will host the only vice presidential debate of this year’s election, in part because of its ties to that legacy.

The Unintended Consequences of Taking a Hard Line on School Discipline

In short order, the boy was led away by the police. Also in short order, the city’s Department of Education issued a statement invoking a two-word phrase that has virtually been holy writ in classrooms around the country for the past quarter of a century: “There is zero tolerance for weapons of any kind in schools.”

The question of whether American Sign Language (ASL) is a “foreign” language is often discussed in the education community, as well as if ASL, in fact, has its own culture. We traditionally associate a foreign lanague with its own distinctive culture and we stress how important it is that students learn the culture of a people as much as they learn the language. Given this, could ASL become a foreign language studied in public schools based on these two components?

Deaf Culture
Gallaudet University, a “university designed to be barrier-free for deaf and hard of hearing students” located in Washington D.C. has been an advocate for deaf rights and educating the world on American Deaf culture for more than 150 years. The university emphasizes how ASL has given deaf and hard of hearing people a set of values, behaviors and traditions that are included in their culture.

These include: 

• Promoting an environment that supports vision as the primary sense used for communication at school, in the home, and in the community, as vision offers individuals who are deaf access to information about the world and the independence to drive, travel, work, and participate in every aspect of society. 

• Valuing children who are deaf as the future of deaf people and Deaf culture. Deaf culture therefore encourages the use of ASL, in addition to any other communication modalities the child may have. 

• Support for bilingual ASL/English education of children who are deaf so they are competent in both languages. 

• Inclusion of specific rules of behavior in communication in addition to the conventional rules of turn-taking. For example, consistent eye contact and visual attention during a conversation is expected. In addition, a person using sign language has the floor during a conversation until he or she provides a visual indicator (pause, facial expression, etc.) that he or she is finished. 

• Perpetuation of Deaf culture through a variety of traditions, including films, folklore, literature, athletics, poetry, celebrations, clubs, organizations, theaters, and school reunions. Deaf culture also includes some of its own "music" and poetry as well as dance. 

• Inclusion of unique strategies for gaining a person's attention, such as: gently tapping a person on the shoulder if he or she is not within the line of sight, waving if the person is within the line of sight, or flicking a light switch a few times to gain the attention of a group of people in a room. 

The statements by Gallaudet touch on the important aspects of the Deaf community like social cues, a defined language and the valued traditions they practice. These aspects are what we often associate with the word “culture”. 

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders ( NIDCD) compares spoken langauge to ASL noting that in spoken language, words are produced by using the mouth to make sounds. Within sign language, vision is the most important tool for recieving and giving information. Sign language is also different than English. This language has its own rules for pronunciation, word order and complex grammar. Just as an English speaker raises the pitch in their voice to ask a question, ASL users raise their eyebrows, widen their eyes and tilt forward. If carefully lookead at, ASL contains intracacies similar to those found in spoken language. 

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ASL as a “foreign” language
In Virginia, a seal of biliteracy is an award given by a school, district, or county office of education in recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency in two or more languages by high school graduation. In 2015, the Virginia Board of Education established criteria for awarding a diploma seal of biliteracy. Within the Virginia Code, the Board of Education’s Seal of Biliteracy certifies attainment of a high level of proficiency by a graduating high school student in one or more languages in addition to English, and certifies that the graduate meets all criteria. The code defines “foreign language” as a language other than English, and includes American Sign Language. Below is a map of each states status on biliteracy.



Research suggests that learning ASL at a young age creates benefits not only for hearing impaired children, but also for hearing children and children with developmental disabilities. ASL often strengthens speech development, reduces frustration in young children and babies because they have a way to express themselves, and helps children with abnormal behaviors associated with autism and other developmental disabilities with their agression, self-injuring, anxiety and depression since often times these behaviors are attributed to the inability to communicate with others. 

ASL occupying colleges by storm
More and more colleges are accepting American Sign Language (ASL) in fulfillment of foreign language requirements. Sherman Wilcox, Ph.D, a professor of linguistics at the University of New Mexico maintains a list of colleges and universities that accept ASL in fulfillment of graduation requirements. The list as of June 15, 2016 has 185 institutions. Virginia’s top schools including University of Virginia and Virginia Tech are included in this list as well as well known Ivy league schools including Harvard and Yale.

 
The above information has hopefully sparked your interest in ASL and showed how school systems have a complex road ahead as they determine how best to educate our youth. The poll below examines another important topic for educators also relating to non English speakers, English Language Learners. 

We hope you have a great week!

Sincerely,
CEPI

CEPI Poll Snapshots - Public Opinion on Policy toward English Language Learners