December 8, 2008 - A current initiative of the Office of School Redesign in Austin Independent School District (AISD) aims to improve the performance of English language learners (ELLs) on middle and high school campuses.

To address student achievement, professional development opportunities are being provided for teachers of English as a second language (ESL) by WestEd’s Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) program. The 2007-2008 academic year was year 1 of a 3-year implementation plan in which Lanier and International Highs Schools began serving as model schools. First-year program evaluation findings include the following:  
 

• Teachers at Lanier and International involved in QTEL training recognized the importance of the QTEL program tenets and believed the strategies for improving service to ELLs were realistic.
• The greatest strengths of the program were reported to be (a) the in-depth discussion and content provided in the advanced training, (b) the support of QTEL staff as classroom coaches to facilitate teacher implementation, and (c) the ongoing nature of the QTEL training beyond Year 1.
• Barriers to program implementation were identified as (a) lack of time and resources to fully implement QTEL, (b) difficult integration for math and new teachers, (c) lack of teacher buy in to redesign the ESL curriculum, (d) lack of clear communication about district plans for this program, and, (e) poor communication and flow of information regarding roles and responsibility of key partners.

 
 
For more details about AISD’s QTEL implementation, view the full report at http://www.austinisd.org/inside/accountability/evaluation/.