Pre-consent Notification Letters -CSSO and LIEP to ED

Dear X [Chief State School Officer]:

The U.S. Department of Education is conducting a study titled “Language Instruction Educational Programs (LIEPs): Lessons from the Research and Profiles of Promising Programs.” LIEPs are program models that consist of a comprehensive set of services including curriculum and instruction strategies as well as other essential services (e.g., counseling, family support, etc.) that facilitate English proficiency and academic content gains for English learners (ELs).

Particular LEAs or schools in your State have been nominated by the State Title III Director, or by experts in the field, as having promising LIEPs at the elementary and/or secondary level. We will be inviting them to voluntarily participate in the study. By participating, we will be able to gather data from their school districts and schools that will yield an initial description of well-designed and implemented LIEPs. This data will be used to create a “Guide” to provide practical assistance to local educators on selecting, designing, implementing and evaluating LIEPs.

To collect this information, we will conduct a single visit to a participating district(s) in your state. During the visit, we will be conducting interviews (each interview will be approximately 60 minutes) and school-based observations (each observation will be approximately 30-45 minutes) to learn more about the following key components regarding the recommended LIEPs:

 

• EL curriculum and instruction

• EL program components and services

• Assessment of students and evaluation of programs

• Teacher capacity

• Professional development/learning

• Resource allocation

• Family/community roles and support

 

We will be reaching out to LEA leadership to involve them in a scheduled site visit by a team of evaluators from SEI/edCount, the contractor team, who will be conducting the study. The team will be conducting the site visits between September 2011 and November 2011. During the site visit, the team will interview the following respondent groups – teachers (EL and general education), school administrators; district headquarters personnel (e.g., EL coordinator, Assessment Coordinator, Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator); and families and family support liaisons. The site visit team also would like to observe related activities or events involving EL students and families. Every attempt will be made to protect confidentiality by use of unique identifiers, publishing findings in aggregate, and keeping data in secured systems. The informed consent form that will be provided to participants in your state is included for your review.

 

We wanted to make you aware of this study and of potential involvement of LEAs in your state. We believe it is an exciting opportunity to have LIEPs in your state nominated for inclusion in this study. Please contact Rhonda Crenshaw at [email protected] , the study project director, if you have any related questions. We look forward to the opportunity to work with you.

 

Sincerely,

Stuart Kerachsky, Director US Department of Education Policy & Program Studies Service

Rhonda L. Crenshaw, M.A. Project Director

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