Culturally Proficient Practice

Help your English learning students achieve academic success!

U.S. demographics are quickly shifting, and it is more important than ever to reach and teach English learning students. Designed to empower educators to become agents of change in their classrooms, schools, and communities, this guide introduces the principles of Cultural Proficiency and how they can help improve educators′ ability to effectively teach English language learners. This book features:

• Activities that build core Cultural Proficiency skills and promote personal transformation
• A chapter-by-chapter rubric for working effectively with English learning students
• A conversation-starting case story featuring the River View School District
• Strategies for using action research to improve the success of English learning students

By focusing on Cultural Proficiency—and the underlying causes of EL achievement gaps—educators can uncover ways to break down academic barriers and use students′ cultural background as educational assets.

"This is a valuable resource for staff developers creating culturally proficient learning environments to close the achievement gap. This work focuses on English learning students with the same ′inside out′ approach as the authors′ previous work. A perfect asset for a professional learning community book study!"
—Linda Fisher, Staff Development Coordinator
Lincoln Unified School District, Stockton, CA

"The book provides the school leader with the tools to engage themselves and others in making English learning students a priority. It is a must read for educators to get those hard and healthy conversations started and to examine our school practices and policies."
—Lori Henderson, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services
Manitoba, Canada

Dr. Reyes L. Quezada was born in San Juan De Los Lagos, Jalisco, Mexico. His family of 8 immigrated to the United States and settled in Southern California in a farm near the Mexican border by Brawley. He was seven years old.  His father was a farmworker and participated in the Bracero Program (Guest worker) in the early 1960’s, his mother was a stay home mom who provided a caring and loving environment for his brothers and sisters. He has been a teacher, community college counselor and teacher educator for the past thirty-eight years, twenty of those years as a professor.  He joined the University of San Diego, San Diego California in 1999. He has been a professor at the University of Redlands, and California State University Stanislaus. He holds Community College credentials in Counselor Education, Supervision, Psychology, and a California Multiple-Subjects Bilingual Emphasis Teaching credential-Spanish.  His degrees include a Bachelor of Arts from San Jose State University and a Minor in Mexican American Studies, and holds four Advanced Degrees-a Masters degree in Education from the University of San Diego, and a Masters degree from San Diego State University, a post Masters degree-Educational Specialist degree from Point Loma Nazarene College and a doctorate from Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona.   Dr. Quezada has presented at international, national, and state conferences (France, Spain, South Africa, Mexico, Costa Rica, Middle East, Italy, England, Colombia, Canada, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Czech Republic, Greece, Ghana, and in Israel). His teaching, research and publications are on issues of cultural proficiency, equity, international education, diversity, family school and community engagement, bilingual education and migrant education.  His publications include four books, twenty journal articles and eleven book chapters. He has edited five themed journals on internationalizing colleges and schools of education for the Catholic Education Journal, Teacher Education Quarterly, and in Teaching Education, as well as on Family, School and Community Engagement and Partnerships in the journals Teaching Education and Multicultural Education.   He is on the board of directors for state, national and international organizations including the national Council of Educator Preparation Programs (CAEP), the American Association for Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), and the current Chair of the International Council for the Education of Teachers (ICET). He was the Co-chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing-Committee on Accreditation (COA), and was Associate Editor for Teacher Education Quarterly, and sits on many editorial and review boards including the Annual Editions of Multicultural Education, Teacher Education Quarterly, Issues in Teacher Education, the School Community Journal, the Journal of Hispanics in Higher Education, Educational Research Journal, Teacher Education Quarterly, Horizon, the Journal of International Studies, and Issues in Teacher Education. He was on the San Bernardino County-Third District Supervisor Representative to the Equal Opportunity Commission, and former School Board President and current member for Real Journey Academies Charter School in San Bernardino, California.   Dr. Delores B. Lindsey served as assistant principal, principal, and county office administrator. She served as Executive Director of the regional school leadership center. Delores uses her skills as Cognitive Coach and Adaptive Schools trainer blended with her understanding and skills as a cultural proficiency trainer to design and implement the 10-Day Certification Program for Culturally Proficient Educational Practice. She served as assistant professor at California State University San Marcos for more than 10 years. She retired from the institution; however, she has not retired from the education profession. Her primary focus is developing culturally proficient leaders. She helps educational leaders examine their organizations’ policies and practices and their individual beliefs and values about cross-cultural communication. Her favorite reflective questions are, Who are we? and, Are we who we say we are? Delores and her husband, Randall (her favorite SAGE/Corwin author), continue to co-write about the application of the four tools of Cultural Proficiency. Her most recent publications which are on Corwin’s bestseller list are Leading While Female: A Culturally Proficient Response for Gender Equity, and My Leading While Female Journey: A Guided Reflective Journal with Trudy Arriaga and Stacie Stanley. Randall B. Lindsey is Emeritus Professor at California State University, Los Angeles. He has served as a teacher, an administrator, executive director of a non-profit corporation, as Interim Dean at California Lutheran University, as Distinguished Educator in Residence at Pepperdine University, and as Chair of the Education Department at the University of Redlands. All of Randy’s experiences have been in working with diverse populations and his area of study is the behavior of white people in multicultural settings. His Ph.D. is in Educational Leadership from Georgia State University, his Master of Arts in Teaching is in History Education from the University of Illinois, and his B.S. in Social Science Education is from Western Illinois University. He has served as a junior high school and high school teacher and as an administrator in charge of school desegregation efforts. At Cal State, L.A. he served as Chair of the Division of Administration and Counseling and as Director of the Regional Assistance Centers for Educational Equity, a regional race desegregation assistance center. With co-authors he has written several books and articles on applying the Cultural Proficiency Framework in various contexts. Email – randallblindsey@gmail.com Website - CCPEP.org Twitter - @RBLindsey41