Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

"Like Everybody Else": Equalizing Educational Opportunity For English Language Learners, Jenelle Reeves

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Equal educational opportunity for all students has long been a goal of public education in the United States. Realizing equality of educational opportunity for English language learners (ELLs), however, has proven to be a difficult task. This article examines 1 high school community's perception of educational opportunity and its approach to equalizing it. The findings reveal a community-wide endorsement of a policy of equal treatment for equalizing educational opportunity. This policy of difference blindness, however, was found to produce inequities for ELLs in at least 2 ways: restricted access to course content and inaccurate assessment and grading. Although teacher participants …