What State Policy can do to Support Dual Language Education

InformED Blog

State policy can drive, sustain school dual-language programs

Erin McIntyre

May 31, 2016

Dive Brief:

• A new American Institutes for Research (AIR) report, "Dual Language Education Programs: Current State Policies and Practices," has been released and offers policy recommendations about how states can help school districts create and maintain robust dual language instruction.
• The expansion of dual language programs should be a statewide priority, AIR recommends, pointing to the state of Utah, where a public-private partnership has helped 138 schools develop coursework.
• States can also create funding opportunities to incentivize dual language programming in schools, like offering start-up grants, offering specialized diplomas to bilingual or multilingual students, and prioritizing the training and hiring of language teachers. 

Dive Insight:

Dual language programs seem to be equally popular with native English speaking students and non-native English speaking students alike. In California, dual-language immersion programs have seen success with Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Hmong instruction. New York City schools have also expanded dual language programs, offering programs in 180 schools as of last October. President Obama's "1 Million Strong" initiative also aims to teach Mandarin to one million American students by the year 2020.
Bilingual or dual language education has proven economic benefits for students, as well as cognitive advantages. “Decades of research show documented results for indigenous-language immersion—including significant gains in achievement, family involvement, and community pride — for a population of students with dismal education outcomes,” the Atlantic Monthly has reported.

Ed Policy Center » InformED Blog » Five Ways States Can Support Dual Language Programs

Five Ways States Can Support Dual Language Programs

26 May 2016

|

by Andrea Boyle, Lisa Tabaku

In a global economy, knowledge of multiple languages and cultures is a hot commodity. More and more schools across the country recognize the importance of bilingualism, offering both English learners and native English speakers opportunities to become proficient in more than one language.
Unlike transitional bilingual programs that mainly seek to prepare English learners for general education classrooms, dual language programs aim to develop students’ literacy and content area knowledge in both English and a partner language, such as Spanish or Chinese. The goal is lasting bilingualism, along with high levels of academic achievement and an appreciation of multiple cultures.
Many decisions about language instruction are made by districts and schools. But a new AIR report, Dual Language Education Programs: Current State Policies and Practices, released by the U.S. Department of Education, shows that, despite some challenges, states can also play an important role in developing and sustaining dual language programs.
A growing body of research supports the dual language approach. Studies have found that by the time English learners reach middle school, those in dual language programs tend to outperform their peers in English language arts/reading while performing as well as or better than their counterparts in math and science.
Our research found a number of ways that states can help expand and sustain dual language programs:

Make expansion of dual language programs a statewide priority. In some states, government, education, and business leaders have come together to develop a strategic plan for scaling up dual language programs. Utah, for example, established a goal of creating 100 programs enrolling 30,000 students by 2015. And they succeeded: By July 2015, 138 Utah schools were implementing dual language programs in various languages.

Help districts and schools secure the funds to develop and sustain dual language programs. At least six states—Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Oregon, and Utah—have offered dual language start-up grants. Meanwhile, such states as Connecticut, Michigan, and New Mexico fund dual language and other types of bilingual education programs. States can also provide guidance on how districts and schools can use other federal and state funding sources to support dual language programs.

Offer outreach and incentives to recruit and retain students. Some states provide technical assistance and materials to facilitate parent outreach. Eighteen states offer a Seal of Biliteracy upon graduation to students who attain proficiency in two languages—a feather in the cap that may help with future college and job applications. And five more states are about to follow suit. Utah allows students who continue their dual language studies in high school to earn credit from state universities for higher-level language courses; Delaware is working on a similar arrangement.

Build the supply of teachers qualified to teach in dual language programs. Finding teachers proficient in the languages of instruction who also know how to embed language development in content lessons can be a challenge. Some states address it by partnering with colleges to develop teacher preparation programs, developing alternative certification routes, establishing teacher exchange programs with other countries, or offering financial incentives. Six states host or encourage practicing teachers to attend summer institutes focused on dual language education.

Provide resources to guide instruction and measure student progress. Dual language teachers in states with Spanish or world language proficiency standards can use these standards, along with those for English language proficiency, to inform instruction and ensure that students are making sufficient progress. Five states require dual language programs to regularly assess students’ partner language skills, and at least 11 states recommend or provide assessment tools. States also can help dual language programs locate quality academic materials in the partner language. These can be difficult to find.

Our study revealed that although states face some common challenges to supporting dual language education, they are developing creative solutions. Interstate collaboration to share knowledge and overcome barriers could ease the process.
Andrea Boyle is a Researcher focusing on school turnaround, English learners, state systems of support for low-performing schools, and teacher quality and effectiveness.
Lisa Tabaku is a Principal Researcher responsible for overseeing and providing professional development and technical assistance to improve educational outcomes for English learners.

Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash

This piece recently appeared in The Atlantic.  There should be no clash between education and assimilation.  Bilingual education in our country is more of an issue of politics than evidence.  When well staffed, funded, and designed, it works in all the ways that we care about in terms of educational outcomes.  If anything, this "debate" has more to do with the dominant group's loss of centrality and a lack of desire to relinquish privilege.  Too bad.  There is so much to gain from a bilingual and bicultural—indeed multilingual and multicultural—world.

-Angela

Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash

Nearly one in four U.S. public-school children speak a language other than English at home. What’s the best way to accommodate ELL students in the classroom?

Stickers on the wall of Coral Way K-8, a bilingual school in Miami. Lynne Sladky / AP

• Melinda D. Anderson
• Oct 27, 2015

With more than 20 languages spoken in one eighth-grade classroom, Harlem Village Academy West in New York City rivals the vibrant cultural and ethnic mix of the United Nations headquarters, a short trip down the FDR Drive. Spanish, Mandingo, Fulani, French, Arabic, and other languages come together to form a tapestry of nationalities. Yet unlike the U.N., the premier institution representing the peoples of the world, public schools have not always encouraged children to embrace their heritages. Indeed, as non-native English speakers, some of the Harlem Village’s middle-schoolers relate feelings of isolation as younger children solely based on their attainment of the English language.

Chelsea, a 13-year-old Spanish-speaker who learned English in the third grade, recalls her earliest years in school as especially difficult amid her struggles to communicate with peers. “I used to get mad and aggravated because I couldn’t speak English,” she says. “People were looking at me as if I were another type of human being.” Her classmates share similar frustrations. “I felt dumb and left out when we did advanced math because my teacher wouldn’t let me do it even though I knew I could,” says Yaye, a bright 14-year-old who speaks Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal, at home. Yaye says he languished in his K-2 English-as-a-second-language classes, “not progressing or learning.” Melyanet, also 14, remembers feeling alienated and lonely when she was in prekindergarten—an age when children often sharpen their social skills through play. “I would try my best to learn English but it was hard,” the teen recalls. “No one spoke [Spanish] so I wouldn’t make friends. I would sit in the back.”

The adolescents at Harlem Village are part of a rapidly growing population of students in America’s public schools with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Of the 50 million students currently enrolled in public K-12 schools, almost one in four (12 million) schoolchildren ages 5 to 17 speak a language other than English at home, according to an analysis of census figures. Their numbers have inched up over the last decade, along with the percentage of students participating in English-language-learners programs. Department of Education data shows this segment of the public-school population is steadily climbing. Some 4.4 million students—ranging from those who don’t speak English to those transitioning into full proficiency—were classified as English language learners in the 2012-13 school year, an increase of more than 250,000 students over the previous decade. 

“Many teachers believe that in order to learn English one must assimilate to American culture and abandon one’s own cultural practices.”

 

Even as states struggle to reach a common definition of what it means to be an English language learner, the proportion of these students continues to rise—and with it, the temperature of debate surrounding the purpose and goals of bilingual education. It remains an unsettled issue that continues to challenge America’s self-image as welcoming and inclusive: The value of linguistic assimilation is pitted against the values of a culturally diverse nation of immigrants, leaving education systems and its students caught in political crosshairs. The divide is exacerbated by financially strapped schools with skyrocketing numbers of English learners—meeting all of the mandates for their education can be expensive—and the national discourse on immigration, which saw the 2016 presidential contender Donald Trump advise his competitor Jeb Bush to “really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”

Many trace today’s fraught bilingual-education politics back to the Bilingual Education Act, which was adopted in 1968 to aid local school districts in educating children with limited English. At the bill signing, President Lyndon B. Johnson voiced his enthusiasm for a law that would bring an unprecedented federal role and funds to the education of children whose first language wasn’t English:

Thousands of children of Latin descent, young [Native Americans], and others will get a better start—a better chance—in school … What this law means is that we are now giving every child in America a better chance to touch his outermost limits—to reach the farthest edge of his talents and his dreams. We have begun a campaign to unlock the full potential of every boy and girl—regardless of his race or his region or his father's income.

--> Yet bilingual education’s cultural, social, and historical dimensions date back well over a century before Johnson signed his landmark education law. In recounting the history of bilingual education, Rethinking Schools chronicles the earliest efforts to teach immigrant students. The first bilingual-education law, enacted in Ohio in 1839, created a German-English language program and was followed by similar laws in Louisiana and the New Mexico area geared around French-English and Spanish-English instruction, respectively. As the trend accelerated, more states and localities began dual instruction in an array of languages, including Polish, Italian, Norwegian, and Cherokee. The onset of World War I—and its accompanying era of xenophobia, discrimination against language minorities, and English-only laws—quickly brought this trajectory to an end. This pattern continued through the 1920s as the tension between forced assimilation and educationally sound practices continued—and as the academic performance of students with limited English skills began to suffer. The passage of the Bilingual Education Act, part of a wave of civil-rights legislation pushed through Congress by the Johnson administration, ushered in a major shift once again and a return to bilingual instruction in many of the nation’s schools. But as the Act was reauthorized in the 1980s and ‘90s and then subsumed under No Child Left Behind in 2002, national policy seesawed between prioritizing multilingual skills and an English-only focus.

Today, schools are still twisting in the wind of politics, with 31 states passing laws naming English the official language over the last two centuries and voters in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts approving ballot measures in recent decades that replace bilingual education with English-only policies. Meanwhile, a growing contingent of educators are promoting the cultivation of bilingualism to support the social and emotional needs of English language learners.

Olga Kagan, a languages and cultures professor at UCLA and director of the university’s National Heritage Language Resource Center, has studied the implications of denying students the ability to communicate in their parents’ native language. “Many of these students have no literacy in the language they speak,” she wrote in a December 2014 Los Angeles Times op-ed. “And that is a problem.”

Rather than ignoring English in the classroom, Kagan calls for capitalizing on the language skills students already have and taking their background knowledge into account. “I think the main roadblock is societal attitude to bilingualism ... We lose much of the nation’s capacity in languages by letting go of this resource,” she told me recently. And the various benefits for students are evident. Kagan’s survey of California college students found many “heritage speakers” wished to study their home language at school to connect with their culture, build their literacy, and strengthen their bonds with relatives.

A growing contingent of educators are promoting the cultivation of bilingualism.

 

Driving much of the decision-making in English-language instruction are myths that need debunking, says Rusul Alrubail, an education consultant whose work focuses on English-language learners and pedagogical practices in the classroom. “Banning [a child’s] first language often creates a negative impact ... a sense of divide for students between their first language, often used at home, and English. We see students who refuse to be associated with their first language, or refuse to speak it or acknowledge that they know it, due to them feeling ashamed ... This impacts their cultural identity.”

Among the consequences, says Alrubail, are when students internalize the notion that their first language is inferior—with English becoming the language of assimilation—and when some immigrant families specifically ask their kids not to speak in their first language at home in an effort to ensure their children conform to Western culture. Interestingly, research finds mixing languages has no impact on children’s vocabulary development. But the pressure from teachers and schools, enshrined in policy and practices, can be immense.

“Many teachers believe that in order to learn English one must assimilate to American culture and abandon one's own cultural practices,” Alrubail said. “This is always a result of fear and anxiety; when students do not meet their expectation of what it means to be ‘American,’ it becomes imperative to speak English.”

The upshot of this mindset is seen in Amadou, a 13-year-old at Harlem Village who speaks Fulani, a Niger-Congo language spoken by 13 million people in many parts of in West, Central, and North Africa. “Nobody spoke my language except in my home [so] I would only try to speak English so they wouldn’t look at me differently. I wanted to fit in with everyone else and be the same,” he says. Will his native language, rich in tradition and heritage, soon slip away as the middle-schooler slowly simmers in America’s melting pot?

From the Atlantic Monthly.  Not good news.  Schools should be headed in the opposite direction. -Angela

U.S. Schools Saying Goodbye to Foreign Languages

Such instruction is in rapid decline despite the proven benefits of bilingualism.

Sonali Kohli Dec 13 2014, 9:00 AM ET

USAG- Humphreys/Flickr

Success Academy Charter Schools is responsible for about 9,000 students in 32 charter schools around New York City. Eva Moskowitz, the school's CEO and founder, recently spoke with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute about how to fit everything she deems important for students—coding, recess, and science—into the school day, five times a week. One of the school's new "solutions," she said, was to cut foreign languages.

From the interview:

So something’s got to go. We picked—and you know this may be shocking to this audience—we picked foreign languages. People say “Don’t you believe in foreign languages?” I love multilingualism. I speak French, but something had to go. … We can’t do everything. And by the way, Americans don’t tend to do foreign languages very well. I think if I were doing schools in Europe I might feel differently. But my son took three years of French and he could barely say, “How are you?” … I really believe whatever we do we should do it exceptionally well and I wasn’t sure that I could find foreign language instructors that were really really good and could do it at a very very high level.

(Here's a video of the interview, in full.)

Indeed, foreign language instruction has been on the decline around the U.S., at least in elementary and middle schools—which is Success Academy’s sweet spot. (High schools remained steady, with 91 percent of them offering foreign languages, and Success only has one high school so far.)
Here’s the change in the percentage of U.S. schools offering foreign language instruction in 2008 versus 1997, according to a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education:

---

Schools Offering Foreign Language K-12

Quartz

---

In Moskowitz’s defense, English continues to assert its dominance as the language of the global economy. But some would argue that just relying on everyone else to speak English could be detrimental to American business growth—while potentially sacrificing the benefits of bilingualism and of foreign language study.