ProEnglish names Dr. Rosalie Pedalino Porter new Chairwoman

March 21, 2011
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Presented by ProEnglish

ARLINGTON, VA – ProEnglish, an Arlington, Va.-based national organization that advocates for English as the official language of government at the state and federal level, today announced that Dr. Rosalie Pedalino Porter of Singer Island, Florida, and Amherst, Mass., will assume the chairmanship of the Board of Directors. She replaces Bob Park of Arizona, who remains a Board member.

ProEnglish Executive Director Jayne Cannava said, “That the Board unanimously placed Dr. Porter at the helm is a tribute to her skills as a manager, organizer and writer. She arrived in our country at the age of six not knowing a word of English, yet soon mastered the language and progressed to high levels of achievement during her amazing career.”

“Dr. Porter was a Spanish bilingual teacher, director of the Bilingual/ESL Program in the Newton, Mass., public schools, and has frequently appeared as an expert witness on English-language related court cases. She has advised the U. S. Congress on education issues, and is a consultant to school systems around the country.  For several years she served on the Governor’s Education Reform Review Commission in Massachusetts,” Cannava said.

Dr. Porter was executive director of the READ Institute (Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development) and is the author of three books, Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual Education, Language and Literacy for English Learners, and American Immigrant: My Life in Three Languages.