From Compliance to Excellence - Keith Collins

For many years I stood on my pedestal of goodness. I was confident and proud of my advocacy for students with diverse learning needs. I stood behind my doctorate and years of research in developing service delivery models. Things change and now my professional focus has shifted to supporting English Language Learners (ELLs). With this comes new learning and my pedestal has started to crumble. After a recent course, I now realize that I was leading excellent compliance, but I was falling short of leading excellence.

The term compliance conjures up images of support models, graphic organizers, language proficiency assessments, and translating the occasional document. All of these are important, all of these provide the baseline of our support, all of these are compliant. We need more than compliance, we need excellence.

Excellence is moving beyond compliance. Excellence is driven by a sense of justice, integrity, and understanding the need to do more than the minimum required. Excellence is when we are motivated to ensure all teachers receive professional learning specific to scaffolding ELLs. Excellence is developing a school climate in which all languages and cultures are treated with dignity and respect. Excellence is schools identifying linguistically sensitive assessments so students can truly demonstrate their knowledge. Excellence is when ELLs have equitable access to all curricular and extracurricular activities in school. Excellence is what makes a child feel safe, comfortable, and welcomed each and every day. Excellence is doing the right thing, even if you are not always getting it right.

The next time an ELL student walks into your school, ask yourself if you are providing that child a compliant education or an excellent education.

Calderón, M, et al (2020). Breaking down the wall: Essential shifts for English learners’ success, Corwin.

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