Advocating for English Learners

Diane Staehr Fenner, PhD, is the president of SupportEd (SupportEd.com), a woman-owned small business located in the Washington, DC, metro area that she founded in 2011. SupportEd is dedicated to empowering multilingual learners and their educators. Dr. Staehr Fenner leads her team to provide ML professional development, coaching, technical assistance, and curriculum and assessment support to school districts, states, organizations, and the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to forming SupportEd, Dr. Staehr Fenner was an English language development (ELD) teacher, dual language assessment teacher, and ELD assessment specialist in Fairfax County Public Schools, VA. She speaks German and Spanish and has taught in Berlin, Germany, and Veracruz, Mexico. Dr. Staehr Fenner grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and is a proud first- generation college graduate. She has written eight books on ML education (and counting), including coauthoring Culturally Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity and authoring Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators. She is a frequent keynote speaker on ML education at conferences across North America. She earned her PhD in Multilingual/Multicultural Education at George Mason Universityand her MAT in TESOL at the School for International Training. You can connect with her by email at Diane@SupportEd.com or on Twitter at @DStaehrFenner.

"In many ways, the history of American Education is the history of a quest for equality.  With this must-read book, Dr. Staehr Fenner empowers educators to continue this quest on behalf of students who have too often been relegated to the basement of school buildings, literally and figuratively.   She lends a human face to the experience of English Learners and encourages us to think in terms of what attributes ELs bring to their learning experience and how others can benefit from their presence in the classroom. This book is a promising, uplifting, and much-needed call for action!"

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorIntroduction1. Need for Advocacy for English Learners2. Creating a Shared Sense of Responsibility for Teaching English Learners3. How ESL Teachers Can Collaborate to Expand Advocacy Efforts for ELs4. Advocacy Overview for School and District Administrators5. Increasing EL Families′ Involvement Through Building Their Advocacy Capacity6. Advocacy Through Effective Instruction of ELs7. Advocating for ELs in Assessment8. Advocacy for ELs′ Success Beyond Grade 12Index