Raise the Bar: Pathways to Multilingualism / ELEVAR LAS EXPECTATIVAS: Crear vías para el compromiso global from the U.S. Department of Education

Friends:

Check out this U.S. Department of Education piece titled, "Raise the Bar: Pathways to Multilingualism." Multilingualism should be the norm everywhere.

Favor de leer este artículo del Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. titulado, "ELEVAR LAS EXPECTATIVAS: Crear vías para el compromiso global." El multilingüismo debería ser la norma en todas partes. 

-Angela Valenzuela / -Ángela Valenzuela

Raise the Bar: Pathways to Multilingualism

Goal: Provide every student with a pathway to multilingualism.

The Problem

The number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English at home has nearly tripled over the last three decades, our nation is continuing to grow more diverse, and our economy is becoming ever more globally connected. But only 20 percent of Americans can converse in two or more languages. Additionally, English learners are one of the fastest-growing student populations in our nation’s public elementary and secondary schools; yet, far too often, the opportunities for English learners in school are limited.

We must do all we can to improve the learning environments in which English learners are learning English and increase access to high-quality language programs so that they, along with all students, have the opportunity to become multilingual.

Our Strategies

To be sure, the over 5.1 million English learners in our nation’s classrooms must be seen as assets—young people who come to school with wonderful languages and cultures to be shared and valued—and multilingualism should be viewed as the superpower that it truly is.

The Department is committed to working with leaders at the state and local levels to invest in, promote, and support evidence-based language practices and programs. Strategic action in the areas below represent key levers to provide every student with a pathway to multilingualism.
Equitable Access for English Learners:

To expand equitable access to a high-quality education to all English learners, the Department is developing and implementing processes that enhance oversight for the civil rights protections of English learners, as well as related funding obligations for English learner services. We also are promoting evidence-based practices to address the barriers that English learners can encounter in education. And importantly, the Biden-Harris administration has expanded funding for Title III over the last few years, which is crucial to supporting millions of multilingual learners across the country. Through $890 million in Title III grants to states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, the Department will continue to help improve the education of English learners and immigrant youth.

The Department also is continuing its robust oversight of the obligations that schools have to serve English learners under Title VI. The law requires that schools, districts, and state educational agencies take affirmative steps to address language barriers so that English learners may participate meaningfully in their schools' educational programs.

Despite progress across the country, the current, unfortunate reality is that English learners continue to graduate from high school at a lower rate than their peers and face barriers to a high-quality education that other students do not have to overcome. It is important to pay close attention to graduation rates because this data can be indicative of larger issues around equitable access to core curriculum, advanced coursework, and extracurricular programs.

The table below shows the percent of English learners graduating in four years compared to the overall graduation rate across the United States for the 2020-2021 academic year.


High School Graduation Rates for English Language Learners SY 2020-2021
(download data as a spreadsheet)

Increase Access to Quality Bilingual Education for All:

Knowing additional languages along with English is a much-needed skill that will have an enormous impact on our nation’s future workforce as well as our ability to compete and engage globally.

The Department is working diligently to increase access to high-quality language programs. We are continuing to provide technical assistance and oversight to promote research-based bilingual educational opportunities and language instruction in early childhood education settings and beyond.

The Department also is highlighting states and districts that are implementing innovative approaches to serving multilingual students and we are elevating evidence-based programs, including seals of biliteracy at the state level.

The map below shows the total number of districts and the percentage in each state with dual language or two-way immersion programs that receive federal Title III funding.

Being bilingual and biliterate are proven to have significant academic, cognitive, economic, and socio-cultural benefits that are important to recognize and leverage as we prepare students to move into post-secondary education or careers.


Bilingual Education for English Language Learners, 2020 - 2021
(download data as a spreadsheet)



Prepare a Diversified Bilingual/Multilingual Educator Workforce:

To develop and grow a diverse educator workforce that can robustly serve our English learners, multilingual leaners, and multicultural students, the Department is providing technical assistance and funding opportunities through competitive grants, including through first-time funding for the August F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence program.

We also are disseminating information about and supporting evidence-based state and local programs that are building educator workforce capacity, including grow-your-own programs, teacher residencies, and apprenticeship programs. Additionally, the Department is supporting graduate fellowships and colleges and universities that are prioritizing English as a Second Language and bilingual educator preparation programs for bilingual and multilingual educators. If we are to prepare students for a global society and economy, we must continue to increase opportunities for future educators to participate in state, local, traditional, and non-traditional educator preparation programs that provide teacher candidates with the knowledge and skills to serve English learners and multilingual students.

Through the use of the bully pulpit, grant funding, and a new Native Language Resource Center, the Department will continue to elevate the need to support a diverse and multilingual educator workforce to serve our increasingly diverse students and ensure they have the skills to meet the needs of a global economy and society.
Sampling of ARP Funding Highlights:Through the American Rescue Plan (ARP), states and districts are engaged in important work to expand pathways to multilingual education and to support English learners. For example:Indiana's Teacher of English Language Learners (I-TELL) program is paying for tuition and fees for current educators to earn the additional licensure they need to become teachers of record for students who are learning English. This program is a partnership between the Indiana Department of Education and the University of Indianapolis' Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning.​
The Red Hawks Rising Teacher Training Academy is a partnership among Montclair State University, the Newark Board of Education, and the American Federation of Teachers. The program prepares students of color to become teachers who reflect the diversity of the Newark community.
Collier County Public Schools in Florida has launched specific strategies to bridge the digital divide for migrant students based on feedback from migrant students and families and community partners. Schools within the district also are home to Migrant Resource Centers where students and families can go to receive targeted supports, services, and mentoring.
California's West Contra Costa Unified School District is using surveys to keep track of English learners' overall well-being and providing their families with translated communications on available services, including school counseling.​
The Illinois State Board of Education has created a $4 million grant from federal pandemic relief funds that will help to increase the number of bilingual educators in the state.​
Grants and Resources:To capture the ways in which the Department is working to provide every student with opportunities for multilingual learning, the agency released a one-pager with links to federal resources and grants.
For the first time ever, the Department awarded funding for the Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence program. Through this program, $18 million in federal funds will be put to use to support colleges and universities in prioritizing educator preparation programs that prepare multilingual teachers of color to become fully certified to teach multilingual learners, including in dual language programs.​
The Department's National Professional Development grant program is supporting 44 colleges and universities to deliver professional learning for teachers of English learners, with a focus on school readiness and early childhood development.
The National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition has disseminated more than 25,000 resources to the field, including briefs, fact sheets, toolkits, podcasts, and other information to serve multilingual learners and highlight their needs.

This is a very important piece on the vitality of the Spanish language in Texas. The rate of alleged "Spanish-language loss" is held up to scrutiny with not all agreeing whether this is reality or a measurement error. Another interpretation is compositional, meaning that it's not so much that Spanish is on the decline, but rather that places like San Antonio and perhaps Austin are increasingly comprised of third-generation Latinas/os that are less likely to speak Spanish. This maps on to the fact of growing cities that bring in increased numbers of non-Spanish speaking individuals. 

Still, others don't believe the numbers, saying that they're sensing a high demand, for instance, in San Antonio ISD, for dual language programs. I sense the same here in Austin, as well. Of clear concern for all is the real possibility of any decline in the aggregate, especially considering the importance of Spanish as a state and world language.

Regardless of data and interpretation, this is a historic problem that connects not just to prior legal prohibitions toward the Speaking of Spanish in our state, but also to existing structural dynamics with education policy itself—outside of dual language programs—not sufficiently supportive of fully-vested bilingualism and biliteracy. In my own work (Valenzuela, 1999), I term this "subtractive schooling," where schools are more about taking away one's fluency and culture than they are about adding and expanding upon these from an asset-based perspective. 

These concerns are felt personally, often accompanied with a great deal of anguish. It is a significant loss for children not to be able to communicate with their grandparents. It's also frequently humiliating when people expect you to speak Spanish simply because you're brown despite a long history of language oppression in our state and nation that continues into the present.

These concerns are what motivated us to start our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli here in Texas back in 2013. We are entering our tenth year of existence and know that we are making a dent in Austin, Texas, by encouraging a love of Spanish, beginning with a pedagogy anchored in children loving themselves and the multiple identities that they possess.

As a Mexican American/Latinx/o civil rights community, we have fought long and hard for our right to our bilingualism, and biculturalism. From our perspective, it's less about economic gain, and more about the wealth of our identities and pushing back against the self that so many of our schools reject. It's our God-given right. 

In fact, we should be expanding this agenda to include, as well, Indigenous tongues, especially considering the more recent waves of immigration from the Americas comprised of individuals that speak their natal tongues, many of whom are trilingual but reduced to being "Mexican," "Central American," or "South American" in society with little to no sensitivity to the cultural and linguistic wealth that they bring. Incidentally, this is not just a Texas or U.S. problem, but a hemispheric and global one, as well.

While our work is far from over, the possibilities are plentiful. At least we all cohere on the idea that language and culture are what make us interesting and strong. Indeed, bilingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism are our superpowers!

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: US-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. NY: State University of New York Press.

Unspoken fears: S.A.’s decline in Spanish speakers stirs community concerns

The percentage of people who speak Spanish is dropping. That may have real cultural and economic impacts on the city, local leaders say.

By Liz Teitz, Ricardo Delgado, Libby Seline,Staff writersDec 28, 2023

Students at Washington Irving Dual Language Academy cheer for Principal Mayra Gutierrez-Ibarra on Dec. 14, thanking her for implementing a "pajamas day" for students. The school is part of San Antonio Independent School District, which is seeing increased demand for dual language programs that teach students core subjects like math and reading in both English and Spanish. Josie Norris, San Antonio Express-News

Like many bilingual children, Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez lived in two worlds.

At church and at home, she spoke Spanish, her Mexican mother’s native tongue. But the rest of her world in Texas demanded English.

“I knew that I needed to talk like the white kids to be respected by my white teachers,” said Reyes-Barriéntez, who grew up in Laredo. “It’s not that I didn’t want to be Mexican. I just wanted the privilege of being white, the privilege of being in the dominant group.”

But Reyes-Barriéntez always felt pride in being bilingual, saying it was second nature to her and her two siblings. Now raising two kids of her own in San Antonio, she wants them to learn both languages, too. 

“One of the priorities in raising our children has been for them to also be fully bilingual and bicultural,” she said.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey for the political science professor and her husband, who speaks some Spanish but isn’t as fluent. When she speaks to her 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son in Spanish, they can understand her, but they have more trouble speaking it themselves, she said. 

“I imagined that my children would be completely fluent by now,” she said. “They’re not, which is disheartening.” 

Reyes-Barriéntez wants to make sure her children aren’t part of a trend in the San Antonio area: A dip in the percentage of residents who speak Spanish. 

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that as the San Antonio metro area grows, the percentage of residents who speak Spanish is going down.

It’s a troubling trend for many in San Antonio, a place where Spanish language and Hispanic culture run deep, tracing back to the city’s roots as part of the Spanish empire, then part of Mexico, as well as its proximity to Latin America. Community leaders and academic experts say the shift raises questions about the region’s culture and future, and also has the potential to be a drag on the region’s economy.

“Not teaching Spanish is always a loss,” said Alfredo Avalos, coordinator for community and culture at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico’s San Antonio branch. “Opportunities can be lost, along with culture.”

MORE COVERAGE: Success of National Hispanic Heritage Month stirring debate

Across all age groups

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Spanish speakers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area is gradually falling, though it remains the highest among similar-sized cities.

Between 2018 and 2022, 30.8% of people in the metro area over the age of 5 spoke Spanish at home. That was down from just over 33% between 2013 and 2017. That’s according to the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau in five-year intervals. The data show the continuation of a decline that’s been observed for the past decade: in 2012, more than 35% of metro area residents spoke Spanish. 

About 13% of people in the United States speak Spanish, while about 29% of Texans speak the language, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. 

San Antonio’s 2.45 percentage point drop in the share of Spanish speakers was the largest among U.S. metro areas with 2.25 million to 2.85 million residents. The next-largest drop was Austin, which saw a 1.59 percentage point decline.

In the San Antonio area, the largest decline was among residents age 18 to 64, where the percentage of Spanish speakers fell from 35.6% in 2017 to 32.8% in 2022. Among children ages 5 to 17, the share that speaks Spanish fell from 23.3% in 2017 to 20.7% in 2022. In the 65 and older age group, the share of Spanish speakers fell by 1.2 percentage points. 

Not everyone trusts the data: Graciela Sánchez, executive director of San Antonio nonprofit Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, questions the census numbers. Spanish speakers might not have wanted to respond or identify themselves, she said, and she said she thinks the coronavirus pandemic had an effect on responses. The Hispanic or Latino population was undercounted by 4.99%, according to the Census Bureau. 

“I’ve never spoken more Spanish in the community,” Sánchez said, especially compared with 20 years ago, when it seemed like fewer people, and young people in particular, were speaking it. She said she’s also seeing more people demand access to Spanish translators in places like San Antonio City Hall and hospitals, so they can communicate in the language they’re most comfortable in, she said.

The census data show the size of the decline has varied around the region. Within San Antonio city limits, the percentage of Spanish speakers fell by about 2.2 percentage points, and in New Braunfels, it declined by about 1.4 percentage points. In some parts of the metro area, however, the percentage increased: in Schertz, for example, the percentage of the population that speaks Spanish at home increased from about 11% in 2017 to more than 17% in 2022, and in Helotes, it increased from about 10% to about 14%. 

MORE COVERAGE:  Latino Democrats shift to open opposition to Biden’s border policies

Demographic changes

Mexican Embassy and CAL Opens Doors to Hundreds of Free, Authentic Spanish Language Resources Online

Thanks to my colleague, Dr. Deb Palmer, for sharing information on this treasure trove of online resources to promote Spanish-English bilingualism and biliteracy.

Gracias!!!

-Angela Valenzuela 💖

“Bilingualism is Our Shared Identity”  NEW RESOURCE: Mexican Embassy & the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) Opens Doors to Hundreds of Free, Authentic Spanish Language Resources Online

EMBAJADORA MARTHA BÁRCENA

On Monday, the Center for Applied Linguistics in collaboration with the Embassy of Mexico announced the free release of hundreds of online, authentic Spanish language educational materials for language teachers across the United States, including digital textbooks, movies, videos, audioclips, and more.  “Being bilingual among the Mexican and Mexican American communities in the United States defines our identity and reflects an inescapable reality: we are sister nations united by a common history,” said Mexican Ambassador, Martha Bárcena. “We invite the public to discover RedBilingueMexUS.org so that together we can promote this shared identity through the learning of our languages.” Read the full press release.

Visit RedBilingueMexUS.org

25 maps that explain the English language by Libby Nelson

On the subject of the English language, do check out this link.  While it is the case, on the one hand, that languages that don't absorb changes die (see previous post), it is also simultaneously the case that languages that change, incorporating other languages, are strengthened even if they're profoundly impacted.  Stated differently, language purity is a myth.

Think about this the next time that you hear anyone say that someone speaks "perfect English" or that we need to "work hard to preserve the English language." Aside from ignorance, these expressions are more about white supremacy than anything else.  Language is code for power and adhering to the status quo—which helps to explain why despite the norm nearly everywhere else in the world, English monolingualism is policed and reproduced in this country.

This is a great resource with amazing maps for the language classroom.

-Angela Valenzuela

25 maps that explain the English language

By Libby Nelson@libbyanelson  Updated Mar 3, 2015, 2:16pm EST

English is the language of Shakespeare and the language of Chaucer. It’s spoken in dozens of countries around the world, from the United States to a tiny island named Tristan da Cunha. It reflects the influences of centuries of international exchange, including conquest and colonization, from the Vikings through the 21st century. Here are 25 maps and charts that explain how English got started and evolved into the differently accented languages spoken today.

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