[lg policy] The Federal and State Dynamics Shapng Dual-Language Learner Debates

Tue Feb 2 16:00:58 UTC 2016

The Federal and State Dynamics Shaping Dual Language Learner Debates
------------------------------
February 1, 2016
  The Federal and State Dynamics Shapng Dual-Language Learner Debates

Education policy is getting even less attention than usual this election
season. Other than some token nods to early education investments and doing
something (usually vaguely-described) about student loan debt, 2016 looks
to be a dormant year for education politics.

This is particularly true as far as dual language learners (DLLs) are
concerned. While the number of multilingual children in U.S. schools is
rapidly increasing, these students are not getting correspondingly
increased levels of attention in education policy and politics. Even though
one in four American children speaks a non-English language at home.

In part, this is simply the politics of civil rights: advocacy on behalf of
underserved children, by definition, begins with the work of empowering
groups who have been left out of structures of power and privilege. These
groups rarely — essentially *never* — constitute majorities. So advocacy
for DLLs is definitionally underdog work.

Consider: early education investments and student loan reforms are policies
that directly impact large groups of Americans. If you have — or someday
plan to have — children, policies supporting affordable pre-K and college
directly affect you. But if you’re a native speaker of English, it’s not
always clear why better policies for DLLs should matter to you. (I wrote a
longer analysis of this dynamic in a 2014 TPM column
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/why-doesn-t-english-language-learning-have-the-same-cachet-as-pre-k>
.)

But this edu-political quietude  — on DLL policies and beyond — is also
just the darkness that follows No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) December sunset
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/us/politics/president-obama-signs-into-law-a-rewrite-of-no-child-left-behind.html?_r=0>.
NCLB’s replacement, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reduces 2016
candidates’ need (and incentive) to take strong positions in thorny debates
over federal accountability, teacher evaluations, and so forth.

ESSA…marries national political neglect with the reactivation of
innumerable state-level fights over their access to quality opportunities
and stable resources.

Indeed, this is one of ESSA’s signature *features*! First, the new law will
really get rolling in the 2017–18 school year — so the next president will
arrive (in January 2017) relatively late in the implementation game.
Second, and more importantly, it walks back federal authority in a host of
policy areas — there will simply be less of consequence for the next
administration to decide.

That second part is critically important for DLL advocates. Whatever was
wrong with NCLB’s federal accountability provisions (for instance
<http://www.edcentral.org/nclb-bilingualed-nyc/>), they provided
considerable and sustained pressure that made DLLs’ success a priority for
states and districts (for instance
<http://www.the74million.org/article/williams-no-child-left-behind-brought-good-things-for-multilingual-students>).
ESSA allows states wide latitude in defining: 1) what linguistic and
academic success looks like for their DLLs, 2) how schools whose DLLs
persistently fail to meet those expectations will be identified, 3) what
those schools will be required to do to improve, and 4) much more.

Watch this recent Migration Policy Institute webinar
<http://www.migrationpolicy.org/events/taking-stock-essa-potential-impact-immigrant-and-english-learner-students>
and count how many times Senior Fellow Delia Pompa notes that state-level
advocacy will be necessary to protect educational equity for DLLs. Perhaps
state-level advocates are prepared for the many (arcane, complicated)
policy arguments they’ll need to win under ESSA. But, as I’ve written before
<http://www.edcentral.org/essadlls/>, I’m deeply skeptical that equity
advocates will reliably be able to keep states’ attention and resources
dedicated to DLLs. Remember, this is *underdog* work: losses will almost
always outnumber wins, especially at the state and local levels. There’s a
reason that the large majority of American civil rights victories consist
of appealing to the federal government
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/in-dc-policy-more-state-control-over-education-is-a-given-why-thats-wrong>
to rectify injustices perpetrated, aided, or perpetuated by local and state
officials. ESSA sets up a particularly frustrating political dynamic for
DLLs. It marries national political neglect with the reactivation of
innumerable state-level fights over their access to quality opportunities
and stable resources.

Indeed, there is little reason to believe that state policymakers are
prepared to take advantage of their newfound flexibility to enact new
policies to support DLLs. In a recent New America report, *From Crawling to
Walking*
<http://static.newamerica.org/attachments/11902-from-crawling-to-walking/50-State-Scan.8d1f696fd53c404880ec65d364ee08b6.pdf>,
we looked through various states’ PreK–3rd grade policies related to these
students and, frankly, found more causes for concern than consolation.

Here’s an example using New America’s Atlas tool to portray *From Crawling
to Walking *data <http://atlas.newamerica.org/crawling-to-walking> (gathered
from NIEER’s State Preschool Yearbooks
<http://nieer.org/publications/annual-state-pre-k-reports-state-preschool-yearbooks>
).
[image: PreK Language Screening 865x609 The Federal and State Dynamics
Shaping Dual Language Learner Debates]
<http://www.edcentral.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/PreK-Language-Screening.png>

Purple states screen students in their pre-K programs to see which might be
DLLs. Blue states do not. Data Source: NIEER State of Preschool
<http://www.edcentral.org/edcyclopedia/preschool/> 2013. Map compiled using
New America’s Atlas tool (http://atlas.newamerica.org/)

The states in purple require publicly-funded pre-K programs to conduct
language screenings. States in blue do not. That means that states in blue
are offering early education programs to students without necessarily
determining what languages they know, let alone how well they can use those
languages. That’s bad policy — and profoundly strange, since it means that
these states are spending money on pre-K without asking providers to gather
critical information to ensure that their programs meet students’ needs. If
pre-K teachers don’t identify their DLLs, how can they tailor their
instruction to support these students’ linguistic and academic development?

Think of the above map as an example of a “policy equilibrium point.” NCLB
didn’t touch state policies on pre-K language screening. This is how things
shook out when states were left to their own devices. Some state leaders
decided to include this key screening for DLLs. Many did not.

Does this sort of example suggest that state policymakers are deeply,
uniquely biased against DLLs? I don’t think so. Rather, it’s that they hear
from myriad interest groups with wide-ranging concerns. The most powerful
of these groups usually have considerable resources — and their interests
are rarely aligned to those of underserved students and their families. In
other words, state policymakers don’t generally *hope* to serve DLLs poorly
— but these students are likely to be lost in the shuffle when other, more
powerful groups are commanding attention.

Think of your state’s education discourse. Is it usually comprehensive
enough to include careful discussion of DLL assessment policies? Or is it
dominated by arguments over school funding, school choice, integration, and
other high-controversy issues? State policymakers are responsible for
covering lots of different issues, and few are experts in policies related
to DLLs. That is, they may not necessarily have expertise in the area, and
they get considerable pressure to focus on other issues.

So: Pompa is right. ESSA’s passage means that advocates who care about
educational equity for DLLs should focus most of their attention on state
policymakers. That’s the promise of ESSA’s new state-level flexibility. But
it’s important to also acknowledge that this new terrain is likely to be
tilted against those advocates. That’s ESSA’s pricetag.

—

*This post is part of New America’s Dual Language Learner National Work
Group. **Click here for more information on this team’s work*
<http://www.edcentral.org/dllworkgrouplaunch/>*. To subscribe to the
biweekly newsletter, **click here* <http://www.newamerica.org/subscribe/>*,
enter your contact information, and select “Education Policy.”*
http://www.edcentral.org/dllcrawlwalk/

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