Full Report - Center for Collaborative Education

Acknowledgements
This study has been a collaboration of researchers at the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community
Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston and at the Center
for Collaborative Education in Boston with the staff of the Boston Public Schools. The researchers
thank, first of all, our partners: Carol Johnson, Superintendent; Eileen de los Reyes, Assistant Superintendent
and Director of the Office of English Language Learners (OELL); and Kamalkant Chavda,
Director of the Office of Research, Assessment & Evaluation. OELL staff, especially Antonieta
Bolomey but also Lunine Pierre-Jerome and Joseph Dow have provided data to analyze and guidance
in its interpretation; Zoila Riccardi has helped us through the administrative labyrinth of both
BPS and UMB and Milton Vazquez has made our coordination possible. Kamalkant Chavda and
Bou Lim provided the databases that contain the information on which we based our study. As
our findings became evident John Verre, Assistant Superintendent for Special Education & Student
Services, and his staff were most helpful in helping us understand the intersection of the ELL and
SPED services at BPS.
In Massachusetts one cannot do research on education without taking into account the information
and human resources at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
We would like to thank: Bob Lee, Dan Wiener, and Virginia Crocker of the Office of Student
Assessment; Esta Montano, Director, Office of English Language Acquisition and Achievement; and
Jenny Klein-Sosa of the Office of Planning and Research to Close Proficiency Gaps.
The following persons have reviewed our report: Jack Levy, Chair, Department of Curriculum and
Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, UMass Boston; Virginia Diez,Tufts University
and the Gastón Institute; Melissa Luna, Sociedad Latina; Roger Rice, META, Inc.; and John
Mudd, Massachusetts Advocates for Children. Each contributed valuable perspectives (and pages
of suggestions) on the analysis and the recommendations presented here. They challenged us and
we thank them here. They challenged us and we thank them.
This project was made possible by a contract from the Boston Public Schools. The Barr Foundation
and its staff were instrumental in initiating this project through their financial support. We thank
all of them.
Finally, others at the Gastón Institute and UMass Boston have also been very helpful: Morgan Clark,
doctoral student in the Public Policy PhD Program at UMass Boston, helped assemble some initial
data tables. The Public Policy PhD Program at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy
and Global Studies and the Office of Graduate Studies at UMass Boston made possible the participation
of Michael Berardino through a research assistantship in the Fall 2010 and Spring 2011.
Ivelisse Caraballo and Melissa Colon have managed the finances of the BPS contracts assisted by
staff of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. We thank them all very much.
6 Improving Educational Outcomes of English Language Learners in Schools and Programs in Boston Public Schools