Even where there are ESL teachers...

Samuel Freedman reports in the New York Times on a frustrating situation in which the few ESL teachers are pulled away from teaching ESL by paperwork and other tasks. Many of these teachers

"were responsible for completing more than a dozen different forms, evaluations, assessments and reports that came variously from the levels of district, city, state and federal government, and grading standardized tests.

Teachers like Ms. Rabenau were also repeatedly conscripted within their schools to substitute for absent colleagues, to proctor exams in other classes and to chaperon field trips."