Introduction

Rationale

Just two years before the turn of the century, Proposition 227, the so-called "English for the Children," or "Unz Initiative," was passed by California voters. Within one month of the passage, plaintiffs in Valeria v. Pete Wilson had already challenged the constitutionality of the initiative. The suit argued that Proposition 227, legislation which the National Association of Bilingual Education [NABE] has characterized as the most "extreme, irresponsible, and hazardous" in California's history (NABE News, 1998), violates the Equal Opportunity Act of 1974, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Since the restrictions on language education imposed by Proposition 227 will affect more than 1.4 million children and their families in the state, which hosts half of both country's immigrants and programs in bilingual education, its viability is considered a test case for the nation.

Proposition 227 is viewed by many as "evidence of anti-immigration attitudes, language-based discrimination, and racial/ethnic conflict" (Attinasi, 1998, p. 263). Prior to the referendum, popular media consistently reported that over 80% of Latinos (the ethnic group most impacted by Proposition 227) favored the measure, despite the subsequent exit-poll finding that over 63% of Latinos actually voted against the Proposition (Pyle, 1998). Among vocal sponsors of Proposition 227, the Unz Initiative, were Jaime Escalante, the legendary math teacher of Stand and Deliver fame, Gloria Matta Tuchman, a former first-grade teacher and candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and of course, Ron Unz. Unz, a thirty-something millionaire computer scientist, and was once referred to California Governor Pete Wilson as too moderate (NABE News, 1998). Wilson was the progenitor of Propositions 187 (which denied public services to undocumented persons) and 209 (which ended Affirmative Action to promote equity among cultural groups).

At least three controversies are at the heart of public debate in the aftermath of Proposition 227. Briefly, each of these controversies is summarized in a point/counterpoint format in the following sections.

English is an Endangered Language versus a CLD Student's Right to an Appropriate Education

Point

One of the most volatile aspects of the Unz campaign was the recurrent argument that English is an endangered language necessitating public initiatives which provide for its legal protection. In the aftermath of Proposition 227, similar arguments have been the focus of campaigns in Arizona, Massachusetts, and Colorado (Attinasi, 1998).

Counterpoint

In reality, English is spoken well or very well by 97% of U.S. natives and by 94% of the 32 million speakers of other languages in the United States (Wiley, 1996). Moreover, English has displaced French as the language of commerce, international science, and diplomacy and, after Chinese (Putong-hua), is the second most spoken language in the world (Attinasi, 1998).

Additionally, a significant body of analyses germane to the language issue in schools (for example, Landry, 1983) argues that a history of legal precedents, beginning with Meyer v. Nebraska, and typified in Lau v. Nichols, have established a CLD student's language rights as civil rights. In Meyer v. Nebraska, officials' authority to prohibit instruction in students' native languages other than English (in this particular case, German) was denied by the court. Similarly, Baca and Cervantes (1998) convincingly argue that the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Lau v. Nichols was the foundation through which subsequent legislation (such as the Bilingual Education Act) and court precedent (for example, Serna v. Portales) established that students' language rights were also civil rights. In Lau v. Nichols, the Supreme Court wrote:

Baca, Cervantes, and others further assert that the language rights of CLD students extend to and include the right to bilingual education (see Aspira of New York, Inc. v. Board of Education of the City of New York for legal precedent) where school/district demographics and dynamics indicate its applicability (Baca & Cervantes, 1998; Crawford, 1998).

Bilingual Education versus Structured English Immersion

Point

Clause (d) of Article 1 of the Unz Initiative maintains that bilingual education and similar programs have failed CLD students, as evidenced by high dropout rates and low English fluency among immigrant students. In addition, Clause (d) of Article 1 argues that "young immigrant children can easily acquire full fluency in a new language, such as English if they are heavily exposed to that language in the classroom at an early age" (in NABE News, 1998, p. 12). In fact, the wording of Proposition 227 favors the immediate placement of CLD students in a mainstream classroom for 30 days, during which "diagnosis" occurs. Subsequently, the CLD student may be placed in a structured English immersion class for a maximum of one year [180 days by statute], after which the child, whether fluent in English or not, must enter a mainstream classroom.

Counterpoint

Since more than 70% of all LEP students in California at the time the Unz Proclamation was released were not served by bilingual education programs (Attinasi, 1998), it is difficult to reconcile the argument of Clause (d), Article 1, that such programs were the cause of high dropout rates and low fluency among immigrant children. Equally problematic is the argument that CLD children can, in a matter of months or in one year, easily acquire a second language in an immersion setting. One major contradiction of this argument is the comprehensive research of Ramirez (1992), which found that only 4% of students placed in structured English immersion programs were mainstreamed within one year of that placement.

A second contradiction is provided by the recent research of Thomas and Collier which is an ongoing, multidimensional study of 42,000 CLD students in five geographically distinct school systems, longitudinally analyzed over the past 12 years of data collection (Collier, 1996; Thomas & Collier, 1998). Additionally, Thomas and Collier (1998) acquired and re-analyzed portions of the Ramirez (1992) data set to compare that data to their findings. Thomas and Collier found that students who were placed in classes in which they did not receive the benefit of native-language-supported instruction (of the type they would receive in a bilingual education program) required 5 to 10 years to reach the 50th Percentile on L2 [immersion language] standardized tests.

Local Control and Professional Volition versus State-Mandated, English Only Education

Point

Article 3 of Proposition 227 states that "all children in California public schools shall be taught English by being taught in English" and through "English immersion during a temporary transition period" [180 days] (NABE News, 1998, p. 12). According to the wording of Proposition 227, waivers for exemption from the statute are available only if children already know English, are at least 10 years old, or have special needs (note: neither the rationale for the age distinction, nor an explanation of what is meant by special needs are specified by the statute). Additionally, according to Article 5, parents can sue educators who do not implement the statute. Teachers or school administrators may be held personally liable for fees and damages for willfully failing to implement the statute.

Counterpoint

In a recent analysis of Unz (NABE News, 1998), NABE has argued that articles 3 and 5 of the Unz Initiative not only violate the principle of local control but establish a dangerous precedent wherein, "for the first time in the United States, the initiative process would be used to determine the curriculum of public schools—introducing politics into a job which is best left to professional educators and local officials" (NABE News, 1998, p. 9). NABE goes on to argue that these articles threaten to exacerbate a growing crises in teacher recruitment by: (a) thrusting over 1.4 million CLD students upon mainstream classroom teachers who are ill-prepared to address their language learning needs, (b) frustrating language-transition teachers trained to meet CLD student needs through native-language-supported transitions to English, and (c) threatening teachers with lawsuits and unprecedented personal liability for speaking a language other than English or providing any form of native language support to CLD students. On the face of it, the last of these would seem to stand in direct contradiction of the Court's ruling in Meyer v. Nebraska.

The potential impact of the Unz Initiative and Proposition 227 on English as a Second Language [ESL] education could be no less profound than the detrimental repercussions it may have on 25 years of efforts to establish quality bilingual education programs in the 50 states. Although this may seem paradoxical, the situation arises from the fundamental difference between a CLD student's proficiency in Basic Interpersonal Communications Skills [BICS] and her/his proficiency in Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency [CALP] (Cummins, 1981). BICS is social or playground language, necessary for verbal communication. CALP is the proficiency in a language required to successfully negotiate academic tasks and achievement in content-area classrooms. Often, a student's ability to communicate in a second language (i.e., English) in peer interactions (i.e., playground activities) is commonly assumed to signify readiness for content learning in the second language.

However, the proficiency in a second language required for content-area performance necessarily involves considerable CALP development in the second language. Among CLD students in public schools, students' levels of CALP development in the second language are often not yet sufficient to enable academic achievement in the content areas. Moreover, language research has consistently demonstrated that a student's ability to achieve CALP in a second language is inexorably linked to the student's level of CALP proficiency and ongoing CALP development in the first language (Collier, 1996; Ramirez, 1992; Thomas & Collier, 1998).

Therefore, the need to support the CLD student in his/her ongoing CALP development in the native language is fundamental to any form of successful language transition education, bilingual or ESL education not excluded. Accordingly, quality programs in ESL education are built on a foundation of whatever native language support can be provided the CLD student in the methods of instructional delivery and the forms of alternative assessment utilized (Murry & Herrera, 1998). The greater the level of native-language-supported instruction provided in the ESL program, the higher the academic success rate of students in that program.

The passage and aftermath of the Unz Initiative in California vividly illustrate the power of referenda, politics, and sociocultural dynamics in the community of the school system to impact and, indeed, dictate educational policy, school administration, and daily instruction in the public school classroom. Necessarily, the implications of Unz are manifold, many of which have already been discussed and explored in various and subsequent analyses of the meaning of Unz for culturally and linguistically diverse [CLD] students, their educators, and the field of education (see Attinasi, 1998; Crawford, 1997). Nonetheless, at least two recurrent implications of the Unz Initiative seem noteworthy.

First, no one educational group is more or less responsible for the passage of Unz and the impact it may have on the equitable education of CLD students. Each of us, from colleges of education, to teacher educators, superintendents, administrators, and teachers, is equally culpable in our growing failure to accomplish what Hargreaves and Fullan (1998) have referred to as "capturing the public imagination" about the promise of education amidst increasing classroom and community diversity. For them, this persuasion of parents, community members, and the public at large, is central to democratic support of best practices for all students. That is, teachers and other educators must:

One way to achieve this new persuasion is a greater focus on relationships—between teachers and students, schools and parents, and systems and the publics that they serve. As difficult as the prospect may seem, such a focus also implies:

A second implication of the Unz Initiative is the realization that Proposition 227 is but one example of increasingly formidable sociocultural and sociopolitical threats to best practices for CLD students. Furthermore, as the Unz Initiative has demonstrated, many of these threats remain potent despite the fact that they are grounded in premises which fly in the face of theory and research about best practices (Attinasi, 1998; Crawford, 1997).

Nevertheless, as Crawford (1997) has observed, the tendency among educators is to perceive threats to best practice, such as the Unz Initiative, as primarily partisan, political, and out-of-school phenomena. For educators and educational leaders, such phenomena are often considered beyond the scope of pedagogical, in-school solutions to problems of the sort to which education professionals are accustomed. Yet, as critical theorists have repeatedly argued, education, pedagogy, and the practices of teaching are inherently political (Ladson-Billings, 1998; McLaren, 1994; Torres, 1998). Ladson-Billings (1998), for example, has argued that the educator's recognition of her/his profession as inherently political is the first step toward what she refers to as "culturally relevant" professionalism in educational practice. Similarly, Hargreaves and Fullan (1998) have written:

To the extent that politics is an inescapable reality of educational practice, it has been variously demonstrated that sociopolitical dynamics are pandemic to such practice in the areas of bilingual and ESL education (Crawford, 1997; Diaz-Rico & Weed, 1995; Ovando & Collier, 1998).

Ovando and Collier (1998) have observed that this politicization of bilingual /ESL practice is a two-way street as those who value multilingualism and multiculturalism attract support, through the groups they serve, while those who favor assimilation to one sociocultural ideology press an agenda that goes well beyond the confines of the classroom. Similarly, Diaz-Rico and Weed (1995) argue that the hyperpoltical contexts of bilingual/ESL education influence not only the acceptance of CLD students in schools, but also the quality of needs-appropriate programming they receive, the materials and resources available for their instruction, and the class sizes in which they receive instruction.

For Crawford (1997) the politicization of language/cultural issues and language-teaching practices are but a manifestation of a more generalized, Neoconservative backlash against ethnic diversity, the scope of which reaches well beyond the Unz Initiative and the future of bilingual education in California. His examination of ongoing sociopolitical and sociocultural threats to best practices in education account for not just Unz, but the bilingual education debate in light of other longstanding and ongoing examples of anti-immigrant fervor in the 1990s. Examples of this fervor include, but are not limited to, the English-Only Movement (and H.R. 123 in the U.S. Congress), Proposition 187 in 1994 (anti-immigration), and Proposition 209 in 1996 (anti-affirmative action). Crawford (1997) has written:

For Crawford, the politicization of language and language-based educational arenas (i.e., bilingual and ESL education) demonstrates the danger of treating seemingly pedagogical concerns as manageable through professionalism, when, in reality, the issues are ideological and steeped in sociocultural and sociopolitical influences. Furthermore, it is the power of these often ideological influences which makes possible the effectiveness of political initiatives, such as Unz, despite the fact that the initiatives and the debates which surround them are often grounded in misinformation and the misinterpretation of policies and practices which they seek to abolish.

In summary, the implications of the Unz Initiative define the parameters of the sort of advocacy for best practices and policies, which will be necessary in the new century, if the rights of CLD students to an equitable education are to be protected. On the one hand, these implications recommend movement from defensiveness toward recapturing the public imagination about the possibilities of equitable education for all students. On the other hand, these implications argue the case for a more effective balance between professionalism in deciding/defending best practice and advocacy/activism in rebuilding the relationships between the school and its constituents, which will be necessary to more effectively enter the policy debate over educational issues and practices in the new century.

Nonetheless, the educational literature offers little on the topic of advocacy, from which to begin addressing the implications of Unz for professional practice. Noticeably absent are models or frameworks for advocacy which are particular to the highly politicized arena of ESL/bilingual practice. A review of the advocacy literature applicable to educational issues, as well as a review of the generalist educational literature, does, however, suggest some notable trends and possibilities for the development of an advocacy framework applicable to ESL/bilingual professional practice. For example, if we treat an advocate as one who defends, pleads, or maintains the cause of another, a proposal, or a program, then Knitzer's (1976) six principles of advocacy for children, although not particular to bilingual/ESL education, seem reasonable and consistent with that conceptualization:

Knitzer's principles highlight the multifaceted, sociopolitical nature of advocacy for children. At the same time, these principles suggest a more cross-disciplinary perspective on advocacy.

More recent analyses have explored the potential role of teachers in instructional leadership for CLD students. Diaz-Rico and Weed (1995) have described the potential role of classroom teachers, especially ESL and bilingual education teachers, in beginning the advocacy process for CLD students at the level of instructional policy in the classroom. Through these analyses they have also explored ways in which these teachers may effectively advocate for best practices at the community, state, and national levels.

Similar analyses in the area of teacher preparation have focused on the longitudinal efforts of the QUEST/PDS Teacher Leadership Consortium (Forster, 1997) to develop a Model of Teacher Leadership. This model, although not an explicit framework for advocacy, focuses on five key areas where pre- and in- service teachers may demonstrate the greatest development and expertise toward leadership. Among these five areas of professional focus is a student/child advocacy component, which also emphasizes students with diverse needs and abilities. When combined with other more focused studies on the potential role of teachers as instructional leaders (Ogawa & Bossert, 1995) these two analyses (Diaz-Rico & Weed, 1995; Forster, 1997) suggest that teachers are in perhaps the best position to serve as leaders in advocacy efforts for CLD students. In their potential roles as instructional leaders, teachers are in a powerful position to establish and defend best practices for CLD students. As caring, empathetic educators who interact with students, parents, and families on a regular basis, teachers are in a unique position to re-establish effectual and politically potent relationships with parents, community members, and the various publics which may impact school governance and policy-making.

Exploring A Substantive Framework for Advocacy

Although this and similar literature in education and related disciplines do not provide explicit models for advocacy, in general, this literature suggests at least three promising components of an advocacy framework applicable to CLD children and ESL/bilingual education. These three components—currency, defensibility, and futurity—each reflect differing responsibilities to, and possibilities for, advocacy in educational practice with CLD students.

Currency

Currency as a component of an advocacy framework suggests concern with the extent to which educators are aware of potential threats to appropriate services for CLD students and families, theory- and research-driven programming for these clients, and/or funding for program services and materials. Necessarily, an educator's capacity for such awareness will be influenced by the extent to which he/she is current regarding trends and developments in the sociocultural and sociopolitical environments of the school (local, state, national, and professional) which may impact students, families, or programming at the site level.

The notion of currency as a key component of an advocacy framework is not unlike what Lardie's (1989) analysis of effective advocacy has been discussed as the concept of "issue identification." For Lardie, leadership and commitment to collegial awareness raising and clarification of mutual understandings of key issues, which may impact the organization, are essential to effective advocacy. Lardie has written:

Lardie's comments point to variance in perspective, beliefs, and attitudes which both the public and advocates of an issue bring to advocacy interactions. His observations suggest the need for potential advocates to enhance their understanding of these perspectives and attitudes as a foundation for effectiveness in proposing, promoting, or defending a particular cause or issue.

Similarly, Routman (1996) in her analysis of recent external influences on literacy teaching has concluded that misinformation, media hype, parent alienation, and reporting bias have each contributed to a distorted public perception of teaching practices and administrative policies. Her recommendation that teachers enter the public debate highlights the importance of teachers' leadership in currency on issues, trends, and threats to students, families, and programs. For her, teachers as instructional leaders are in a unique position (through currency) to clarify issues for the school's public—from parents, to the community, the media, and to local/state/federal government representatives.

Additionally, Hargreaves and Fullan (1998), in their book What's Worth Fighting for Out There, recommend that the first step to deciding what and how to advocate is to determine "what's out there." For these authors, this determination necessarily involves at least two critical assessments; what are the potential problems which often loom just over the horizon and what are the challenges for students, families, and or programs? Hargreaves and Fullan have written:

"What's out there" for these authors are external, beyond-school threats to appropriate education which teachers, in the isolation of their classrooms and schools, can no longer afford to ignore. Instead, teachers as leaders actively participate in the sorts of structures, planning, and strategies which allow them to individually and collectively monitor the school's external environment. In particular, this monitoring targets currency on the issues and trends which may pose a threat to students and families whose needs are addressed by the school and/or programs which seek to address those needs.

Hargreaves and Fullan have also identified 10 macrosocial problems and challenges that pose a threat to the professional and culturally sensitive practice of all educators. Among the global sorts of problems, which Hargreaves and Fullan have found are critical to a teacher's understanding of potential threats to appropriate and professional practice, at least three are applicable to Bilingual/ESL education settings:

Schools cannot shut their gates and leave the outside world on the doorstep. Radically changing global and local demographics, coupled with low teacher recruitment from minority ethnic groups continue to foster classroom settings where teachers are educating what Delpit (1995) has referred to as "other people's children," whose backgrounds they often do not understand and whose learning needs are unfamiliar. The capacity of teachers to cope with these trends and unfamiliarities will be a function of their ability to connect with what's out there, beyond the doorstep of the school.

More diversity demands greater flexibility. Radically changing student diversity demands more than business as usual. A few more cross-cultural dinners in the school cafeteria or a single, isolated ESL pullout room with students from four different grade levels will not adequately address the complexities of increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in our schools. The increasing heterogeneity of today's classrooms reflects cultural, linguistic, cross-generational, inclusion, immigration, and interethnic diversity. Accommodating this complex of diversity will demand a fundamental rethinking of the purposes, curriculum, goals, instruction, and intended outcomes of teaching. Subsequently, this is not only a formidable, but also an inescapable challenge for which teachers have generally been unprepared in either their baccalaureate or postgraduate education.

The pressures of today's complex environments are relentless and contradictory. Schools are increasingly the focus of public scrutiny and criticism and may, without appropriate monitoring of their sociopolitical context, become the special victims of complex, rapidly changing environments. Among the reasons for this circumstance are: (a) the heightened speed of decision making facilitated by instant access to information has reduced the ability of schools to foresee and control events; (b) the rapidity with which knowledge about classroom learning and effective practices is changing means that many of the truths of today are the half-truths of tomorrow; (c) increasing and multifaceted levels of student and community diversity are throwing traditional educational purposes and goals into question as reflected by trends in alternative, charter, and choice schools; and (d) public philosophies about what direction schools should take are often contradictory (critical thinking versus an emphasis on traditional values, and whole language versus phonics) and reductionistic at the same time they are ceded and unresolved by policy makers, leaving teachers to deal with the consequences.

Defensibility

Defensibility as a component of an advocacy framework reflects the extent to which educators are capable of self-examination and self-reflection on practice, collegial articulation of research and theory based rationales behind that practice, and the reflective development of a personal platform for best practice. That is, if professionals are to defend their perspectives on the needs of students and families, as well as appropriate programs to address those needs, then those perspectives and the programs which flow from them must prove the product of reflective thinking, research and theory-based rationales, and a well documented plan of action.

The idea that self-examination and reflection are critical to the capacity for advocacy is not new in the literature of education. The reflective practice literature, recently revisited as a basis for new conceptualizations of educators' appropriate professional development (Blasé & Kirby, 2000; Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993), is but one example. Among other assertions, this literature argues that regularities in behavior, the product of years of socialization and acculturation, are formidable barriers to our capacities for both currency and appropriate professional practice. Osterman and Kottkamp have written:

These observations highlight the authors' convictions that the decisions we make, the actions we take, and our performance in professional practice is governed by personal action theories. That is, the assumptions we hold about the nature of events, phenomena, and people are reflected in our behaviors. Reflection, then, is a matter of surfacing those assumptions (assumptions which may render our professional practice vulnerable to scrutiny, critique, and oversight) and testing their validity.

Espoused, personal action theories define what we say we think and believe. They operate at the conscious level and they are changed relatively easily in response to new information or ideas. While we may believe that these espoused theories guide our actions, this is often not the case. Theories in use, on the other hand, are so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that we can seldom articulate them. These theories are indicative of the often unchecked/unreflective assumptions and beliefs that guide our behavior. Unlike espoused theories, these theories in use are formulated over years of socialization and acculturation and are, therefore, neither easily recognized, nor easily changed.

Situations in daily practice where discrepancies exist between these two action theories are often prevalent. In these situations, deeply ingrained theory in use prevents the new intentions or information of espoused theory from guiding our professional actions in practice. Self-examination and reflection are central to addressing the discrepancy, which often exists between these two action theories. Informed empathy represents both an advocacy capacity and a useful example of these discrepancies which caring teachers are often able to address through self-examination and self-reflection. Ladson-Billings (1998) has argued that culturally relevant pedagogy for increasing student diversity in today's classrooms must involve more than multicultural awareness raising, more than an espoused, surface-level understanding of the differential needs of CLD students. Instead, teachers as leaders for advocacy must demonstrate the theory-in-use capacity to feel with rather than feel for these students if they are to understand the students' needs and the appropriate role of families in their successful education. To achieve this capacity, this informed empathy, Ladson-Billings argues that teachers as leaders are willing to engage in self-examination and reflection on long-standing assumptions about culture, ethnicity, language, child-rearing practices, and poverty.

Teachers as school leaders for advocacy also engage in the reading, professional development, and collegiality necessary to articulate appropriate rationales for their professional practice. Defensible practice is grounded in research and theory based rationales, which are conveyed to a variety of publics, including: parents, colleagues, administrators, community members, and critics. At the same time, Crawford (1997) has cautioned that educators must be able to explain this grounding of defensibility in ways that are both credible and cognizant of the political context of understanding.

In a recent treatment of this idea of defensibility entitled, Take Charge of Your Own Professional Development and Learning, Routman (1996) maintains that effective teachers reconceptualize themselves as both readers who inform their teaching, and as writers who bring a different voice, a unique perspective, to the educational debate. Routman writes:

Routman's comments point to the importance of living and modeling lifelong learning as a habit of professionalism. Teachers as instructional leaders, therefore, not only read and write for professional growth, but also as capacity building for defensibility of practice. Necessarily, this involves critical thinking and reflection on what is read and written and the implications of it for appropriate, professional practice.

Routman goes one step further, however, to argue that teachers' articulation of what they have read, what they have learned, and what they have written, should be collegial and collaboratively shared in order to foster a community of lifelong learners and informed advocates for student rights. This line of argument is quite consistent with the idea of defensibility as an essential component of effective advocacy in highly political practice environments (Diaz-Rico & Weed, 1995). When teachers are encouraged in a community of their peers to articulate what they are learning and the implications of that learning for professional practice, they are often prompted toward new connections between theory/research and improved instructional practice. They are sometimes persuaded to consider new connections and new synergies as colleagues. They may be convinced toward new discoveries about their capacity to rationalize their practices in interactions with parents, administrators, board members, and the media.

Similarly, Hargreaves and Fullan (1998), in a chapter entitled, Going Deeper, argue that teachers' efforts in deciding "what's worth fighting for out there" must go deeper than currency on potential threats to appropriate practice. They argue that it is impossible for teachers to accomplish either the "deep purposes of student learning" or advocacy for appropriate practices unless teachers are themselves continuous learners and active collaborators. These authors have written:

The comments of these authors implicate the role of professional learning in both best practices among teachers and in teachers' preparedness for a viable defense against challenges to their practice. For these authors, a new kind of accountability should be the norm for educators, from teachers, to administrators, to teacher educators. This sort of accountability makes it incumbent on those who wish to defend or change an educational practice or policy to defend their actions or proposals in light of appropriate impacts on either teaching as a practice or learners as the appropriate focus of education.

One of the best preparations for defensibility of practice is the teacher's development of best practice platform. Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) have defined a platform as, "a written statement that expresses one's stated beliefs, values, orientations, goals, and occasionally, the assumptions that guide professional practice" (p. 67). The potential for advocacy actions is further enhanced when teachers take the process of platform development and articulation one step further by documenting these best practices in a professional portfolio. Such a portfolio documents best practice decisions, actions, and rationales through artifacts from practice, which are rationalized through captions, framing statements, and a theme for professional practice. Shulman (1998) has defined a portfolio as, "the structured documentary history of a set of coached or mentored accomplishments substantiated by samples of student work and fully realized only through reflective writing, deliberation, and serious conversation" (p. 37).

Recent research by Teitel, Rocci, & Coogan (1998) indicates that portfolio development accomplishes a number of useful purposes, many of which are directly applicable to advocacy. First and foremost, an appropriately developed, professional portfolio is a powerful advocacy tool for use with the various publics of the school's community. It can be effectively utilized with parents, media, and community members as: (a) an illustrative, documentary, rationalization of best practices, and (b) as a tool for clarifying the rationales behind programming decisions, instructional approaches, or assessment practices which might otherwise be misinterpreted or misconstrued as inappropriate for the students of a particular community.

Additionally, the ongoing processes of platform development and portfolio refinement can be employed to motivate collegiality and collaboration among educators in the school or as a focus for school-wide reform targeted to enhance the appropriateness of practices for the school's student population. Lastly, portfolios offer the capacity to serve as alternatives to traditional evaluation processes in environments of professional practice where cultural and linguistic diversity demand alternative background experiences and instructional practices (Delpit, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1998). As such, portfolios are capable of illustrating multiple knowledge bases, multifaceted perspectives, theory-into-practice applications, and self-directed monitoring and evaluation.

Futurity

Futurity as a component of an advocacy framework reflects the extent to which educators demonstrate the capacity to step outside of their more traditional roles in practice. In action for advocacy, educators engage in futurity in order to better serve student/family needs, and to insure the long-term viability of appropriate efforts to deliver needs-appropriate, culturally-relevant, and student-centered practices and programs within the school. Essentially, futurity may be thought of as the extra-pedagogical action component of advocacy. Despite the egg-carton-structured, professionally isolated nature of many schools, it is teachers who are willing to step outside of their traditional roles to move toward purposive activism for student/family rights and the appropriateness/viability of quality programs, who apprehend the concept of teacher leadership. This notion of teacher leadership redefines the teacher's role in the learning community as one which influences and engages people to take individual and collaborative actions to prompt appropriate change and improvements in professional practice (Diaz-Rico & Weed, 1995). Forster (1997) argues that this new teacher leadership is not simply a right but a responsibility of all teachers as professionals. Forster has written:

This moral commitment of which Forster speaks encompasses her belief, and that of the QUEST/PDS Consortium, that student advocacy must be a critical component of any framework for teacher preparation, school-based planning, or teachers' ongoing professional development. For Hargreaves and Fullan (1998), building the capacity for futurity and teacher leadership is a process of going wider in order to reach and influence the various publics and communities which impact the success of the school. Five key forces that should be addressed by such futurity are, according to Hargreaves and Fullan: parents and community, government policy, technology, business, and the changing profession of teaching. If one takes a second look at the Unz initiative, it is easy to see how each of these forces was a major factor (either through action or inaction) in the highly political dynamics, which led to the passage of Proposition 227. Echoing this concern, Hargreaves and Fullan have written:

For these authors, teachers as leaders may be most successful when they are willing to initiate educationally defensible partnerships with those outside the school, especially members of the profession, parents, the community, and the media. Such advocacy-driven partnerships require a clear moral purpose, demonstrate educationally defensible goals before self-interest, and are actively committed to social justice.

At least two of the key external forces which Hargreaves and Fullan discuss are of particular interest to bilingual/ESL educators. First, these authors have characterized the parent/community and teacher/school relationship as the one in greatest disrepair and in need of social reconstruction. In this opinion, parents and community members are seen as crucial and untapped resources who have assets and expertise, which are essential to the mobilization of all available resources in the appropriate education of diverse student populations. Among the futurity recommendations which Hargreaves and Fullan offer for repairing this relationship are: home visits; enhanced, two-way communication between parents and teachers; home tutoring assistance; involving parents as school leaders and decision makers; and coordinating with community agencies to identify needed and extrapedagogical services.

Second, these authors argue that perhaps the most profound impact of teachers' futurity efforts could be achieved through an intentional targeting of the policies and practices of their own profession. For them, teaching is a profession which has not come of age. Reform is needed in recruitment, teacher preparation, induction, ongoing professional development, and the day-to-day working conditions of teachers. Teachers' futurity initiatives in this arena which hold the greatest potential for meaningful change are, according to these authors, most appropriately targeted in the following areas:

Conclusion

Highly visible, deep impact referenda and other sociopolitical agendas, such as the Unz Initiative and the English Only Movement, are examples of multifaceted external threats to the professional volition and practice of ESL/bilingual teachers. A variety of demographic, technological, political, and social trends must be monitored as potential threats to appropriate educational practices for differential student/family needs, and to programs that address those needs. Additionally, emergent trends in the literature indicate that teachers as instructional leaders and schools as venues for capturing public interest in and support for education can benefit from capacity building, which better prepares these schools and their faculties as potential advocates for students, families, practices, and programs in bilingual/ESL education.

The generalist literature of education and advocacy for children provides a useful basis for initial explorations of a framework for professional advocacy in this arena of education. This literature suggests promising and purposive components of such a framework, including currency, defensibility, and futurity.

Currency as a component of an advocacy framework suggests concern with the extent to which educators are sufficiently current regarding trends and developments in the sociocultural and sociopolitical environments of the school which may impact students, families, or programming at the site level. At least three macrosocial trends indicate the need for such currency, including: rapidly changing student demographics, increasing classroom diversity, and contradictory demands from parents and special interest groups.

Defensibility as a component of an advocacy framework reflects the extent to which educators are capable of self-examination and self-reflection on practice, collegial articulation of research and theory based rationales behind that practice, and the reflective development of a personal platform for best practice. One of the most effectual preparations for defensibility of practice, one which effectively integrates all three indicators of preparedness for defensibility, is the teacher's development of a personal portfolio—one which documents the teacher's platform for best practice. Professional portfolios may serve as advocacy tools in practice, a focus for collaboration among school educators, or as an alternative to traditional evaluation processes in those practice environments which demand experience with cultural and linguistic diversity among students.

Futurity as a component of an advocacy framework reflects the extent to which educators demonstrate the capacity to step outside of their more traditional roles in professional practice. In action for advocacy, educators engage in futurity in order to better serve student/family needs, and to insure the long-term viability of appropriate efforts to deliver needs-appropriate, culturally-relevant, and student-centered practices and programs within the school. In ESL/bilingual education settings, at least two forces of the external environment of the school should be the focus of teachers' futurity actions. First, deteriorating relationships between parents and schools are increasingly prevalent and may be purposefully addressed through meaningful, futurity-building actions including home visits and home tutoring. Second, reforms in the teaching profession may be essential to teachers' enhanced preparedness for increasing complexity and diversity in professional practice.

Ultimately, research is needed that examines not only the viability of these three advocacy components, but any additional components appropriate to an emergent framework for advocacy in Bilingual/ESL Education. The strongly indicated influence of complex contextual factors in this realm of education seems to warrant initial research, which is grounded in descriptive, qualitative perspectives of investigation.

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