Teaching Quality – What We Know and What We Still Need
Researchers studying which aspects of education have the most substantial impact on students have long declared that the quality of teaching provided to students is the single most important factor contributing to long-term student success, which includes not only post-high school job performance, but also enrollment in and graduation from college. Research also indicates that “quality teaching is more important than a student’s ethnicity, family income, school attended or class size.” Despite these findings, not enough has been done at the state or national levels to improve teaching quality, and in some cases ineffective or dysfunctional policies have been created that actually exacerbated the problem. In this article, Albert Cortez, Ph.D., presents an overview of research on quality teaching.

“Sylvia Mendez on Civil Rights in the 1940s and Today” IDRA Classnotes Podcast Episode 123
Sylvia Mendez remembers vividly the day in March of 1945 when her family was told she and the other children had to go to the "Mexican school." Her father knew it wasn’t right. So, along with other families and with the help of LULAC, the Mendez sued four local school districts for segregating their children. Thurgood Marshall co-authored an amicus brief filed by the NAACP. The subsequent 1946 ruling in Mendez vs. Westminster and the California Board of Education ended segregation in California school districts. In this interview, Sylvia Mendez tells her story and describes how the Mendez case foreshadowed Brown vs. Board of Education less than a decade later. She cautions that schools are more segregated today then in the 1940s. She is interviewed by Kristin Grayson, M.Ed., an IDRA education associate and Bradley Scott, Ph.D., director of the IDRA South Central Collaborative for Equity, provides and introduction.

Fostering Mutually Affirming Relationships, Curriculum Rigor and Relevance – Science Strategies for English Language Learners
In diverse classrooms where there are ELL students, teachers often ask themselves what they can do to help students learn the English language while teaching the content that is required on top of preparing all the students to meet standards of a rigorous curriculum and state assessments. IDRA’s publication, Science Instructional Strategies for English Learners – A Guide for Elementary and Secondary Grades, presents seven umbrella research-supported strategies for the science classroom (Villarreal, et al., 2012). In this article, Nilka Avilés, Ed.D., describes one of the strategies: foster mutually affirming relationships, curriculum rigor and relevance in successful bilingual and ESL science. The strategies also can be used as a base for teacher professional development at both the elementary and secondary levels.

May issue of the IDRA Newsletter Focusing on College Access and Success
Take a look at our latest newsletter with articles on teaching quality, civil rights concerns with state ESEA flexibility waivers, student tracking, and effective dropout prevention, IDRA’s Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program. The IDRA Newsletter is now in a mobile-ready e-Letter format! So you can choose how you want to receive the newsletter, which is also published in print and on the IDRA website. Sign up to get the IDRA Newsletter by email today!