What are some lessons learned from the pandemic? We learned that, in times of crises, the humanitarian needs of students, families, and ourselves must be a top priority.
We learned that forming effective partnerships with families and communities is essential to the health and well-being of our children.
We were offered a blunt reminder that a system designed to serve the interests of a privileged few was destined to fail our historically underserved students, especially our millions of multilingual learners.
Above all, we learned that the "normal" many of us have yearned for was
never good enough--that we must envision a "better world," where we build on our multilingual students' unique assets and cultivate their inner brilliance. Only then will we deliver on their promise.
It's this "better world," a world in which communities, schools, and classrooms work together as a "whole-child ecosystem,"
Beyond Crises: Overcoming Linguistic and Cultural Inequities in Communities, Schools, and Classrooms sets out to create. Taking a look from the outside in, Debbie Zacarian, Margarita Calderón, and Margo Gottlieb address three critical arenas:
1.
Imagining Communities describes how to design and enact strengths-based family and community partnerships, including the critical importance of identifying, valuing, and acknowledging each member's assets and competencies, and the ways recent crises have amplified their struggles.
2.
Imagining Schools takes an up-close look at policies, structures, and now irrelevant ways of schooling that call for change and how we might reconfigure professional development to ensure every teacher and administrator is dedicated to the well-being and success of our multilingual learners.
3.
Imagining Classrooms demonstrates how to optimize learning opportunities--both virtual and face-to-face--so our diverse students grow cognitively, linguistically, and social-emotionally, and accentuate their talents in knowing and using multiple languages in linguistically and culturally sustainable environments.
"Student and family, classroom, school, and local community are not silos unto themselves," Debbie, Margarita, and Margo insist. "They are part of a larger whole that is interrelated and interconnected and, even, interdependent on each other. By forming stronger alliances, we can realize the power of truly working, socializing, and flourishing together."
Beyond Crises is the first critical step forward.
Dr. Debbie Zacarian, founder of Zacarian & Associates, provides professional development, strategic planning, and technical assistance for K-16 educators of culturally and linguistically diverse populations. She has served as an expert consultant for school districts, universities, associations, and organizations including the Massachusetts Parent Information Resource Center and Federation for Children with Special Needs.
Debbie has worked with numerous state and local education agencies and written the language assistance programming policies for many rural, suburban, and urban districts. Debbie served on the faculty of University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she co-wrote and was the co-principal investigator of a National Professional Development grant initiative supporting the professional preparation of educators of multilingual learners. Debbie also designed and taught courses for pre- and in-service administrators and teachers on culturally responsive teaching and supervision practices, multilingual development, and ethnographic research. In addition, she served as a program director at the Collaborative for Educational Services where she provided professional development for thousands of educators of multilingual students and partnered with Fitchburg State University in co-writing and enacting a National Professional Development initiative that supported STEM education. Debbie also directed the Amherst Public Schools bilingual and English learner programming where she and the district received state and national honors.
The author of more than 100 publications, her most recent professional books include: Beyond Crises: Overcoming Linguistic and Cultural Inequities in Communities. Schools and Classrooms; Responsive Schooling for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students; Teaching to Empower: taking action to foster student agency, self-confidence, and collaboration; and Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress.
Dr. Margarita Espino Calderón, born and raised in Juárez, is a Professor Emerita/Senior Research Scientist at Johns Hopkins University. Her research and development projects have been funded by the US Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Labor, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, and various State Offices of Education.
One of her empirical studies
"The Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC)" is featured in the What Works Clearinghouse. The Carnegie Corporation of New York funded her five-year study to develop
Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners (ExC-ELL) to train math, science, social studies, language arts, and ESL teachers on integrating language, reading, and content in core content middle and high school classrooms. With a Title III National Professional Development grant, she implemented
"A Whole-School Approach to Professional Development with ExC-ELL" in Loudoun County, VA. She replicated this approach in 29 schools in TX and NC. She served on the National Literacy
Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, the Carnegie Corporation of New York Panel on
English Language Adolescent Literacy Panel, among other panels and national committees. She has over 100 publications on language, literacy, and professional development.
Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., has been a bilingual teacher, coordinator, facilitator, consultant, and mentor across K-20 settings. Having worked with universities, organizations, governments, states, school districts, networks, and schools, Margo has co-constructed linguistic and culturally sustainable curriculum and reconceptualized classroom assessment, policy, and practice. As co-founder and lead developer of WIDA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, Margo has helped design and contributed to all the editions of WIDA's English and Spanish language development standards frameworks and their derivative products. She has been appointed to national and state advisory boards, served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, and was honored by the TESOL International Association in 2016 for her significant contribution to the field. An avid traveler, Margo has enjoyed keynoting and presenting across the United States, territories, and 25 countries. Having authored, co-authored, or co-edited over 100 publications, including 22 books, Margo′s 3rd edition of Assessing Multilingual Learners: Bridges to Empowerment (2024) and Collaborative Assessment for Multilingual Learners and Teachers: Pathways to Partnerships (with A. Honigsfeld, 2025) are the latest additions to her Corwin compendium.
