upward trend in student demographics reported above, the situation may be worse
today. While more recent nationwide statistics are elusive, Reeves, 2006 cited in
Rubinstein-Avila and Lee ( 2014 ) found that as many as 90% of surveyed secondary
teachers (i.e., those teaching students 12–18 years old) who have a single-subject
credential (e.g., biological sciences, mathematics) had no preparation at all for
working with ELL students. General education teachers with ELL students in their
classrooms report feeling most prepared when they demonstrate an understanding
of the interconnected nature of language and content-area knowledge (Bailey and
Osipova 2016 ), and possess“knowledge of teaching and learning, deep content
knowledge, experience, and full certification in thefield”(Gándara et al. 2005 ,
p. 3).
47.3 New Educational Aspirations
To compound the current situation of general education teachers being underpre-
pared to support the language learning needs of their ELL students, new demands
for these teachers have been added by the most recent reform effort in American
education: the introduction of college and career readiness standards (CCRS) in
English language arts (ELA) and mathematics as well as Next Generation Science
Standards. A response to ongoing globalization, the CCRS describe the compe-
tencies U.S. students need to have when they graduate from high school in order to
be productive citizens and effective contributors to economic vitality. For the most
part, the CCRS call for more rigorous learning and higher achievement than prior
standards. Alongside the CCRS, new English language development
(ELD) standards for ELL students have been introduced. Additionally, the federal
government has funded the development of associated accountability assessments.
These assessments, administered annually for students in grades 3–11, are intended
to gauge student achievement of the new standards.
While the new standards represent challenges for all students and their teachers,
the challenge for ELL students is particularly significant. Already, ELL students
have to learn subject-matter content while simultaneously acquiring a new lan-
guage. Moreover, the CCRS place a strong emphasis on extensive language use to
engage in deep and transferable content learning, and analytical practices. For
example, in terms of analytical practices, the mathematics CCSS require students to
explain, conjecture, construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
And among the ELA analytical practices are engaging with complex texts; writing
to inform, argue, and analyze; working collaboratively; and presenting ideas
(Heritage et al. 2015 ).
In general, across the U.S., language support for ELL students is seen as the
purview of language specialists teaching English-as-a-second-language
(ESL) classes. Typically, these teachers and their subject-matter counterparts do
not spend time planning how they will complement each other in their respective
classrooms. While ESL teachers have knowledge of language development,
700 A.L. Bailey and M. Heritage