Freeman Field's presentation from La Cosecha 2012 in Albuquerque, NM.

Session description: This interactive session situates current debates about education and accountability for bilingual learners within a larger sociopolitical context. Freeman Field draws on her own ethnographic research and practical experiences in different dual language contexts over time. She highlights the role of dual language educators as agents for change.

Session objectives:
Participants in this session are encouraged to…
1. Look critically at their (dual language) programs in relation to current assessment and accountability requirements under NCLB'
2. Identify concrete assessment and accountability strengths and challenges, broadly defined, that they face in their programs
3. Identify action steps they can take to improve their assessment and accountability systems, and counter English-only discourses (policies, programs, beliefs, practices) on the local level.

This session is based on a paper that Freeman Field wrote in the summer of 2011. The reference to the paper is:
Freeman Field, R. (2011). Competing discourses about education and accountability for ELLs/bilingual learners. JMER vol. 2, pp. 9 - 34.