Secondary Schools' Bilingual Gap: Promising Practices and a Path Forward

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00:00:02

Delia Pompa: 
Hello, everyone, and good morning. I'm so happy to see so many of my old friends, and lots of new ones in the session today. I'm Delia Pompa. I am the Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. Today, we're here for this session to brief you, on a report, and the title of this session is Secondary schools' Bilingual Promising Practices and a Path Forward. This session is brought to you from the National Center on Immigrant Integration, a unit within Migration Policy Institute. Our center is focused on integrating U.S. children and youth and their families into U.S. institutions. And, also focused on education most heavily, and that's what we're here to talk about today. This session is based on a report that's being released today, and the report is entitled, you're going to see on there, is entitled, Paving the Way for Secondary Bilingual Education Programs, an analysis of policy and practice. We have four speakers today, and we're really excited to go forward, with four experts.

 

Today, I'd like to start by introducing the authors of the program, Lorena Mancilla, who is the Associate Director for K-12 Partnerships and Policy at the Center, and Victoria Kim, who is the Associate Policy Analyst at the Center. I'll turn it over to them to tell you all about our report.

 

00:01:30

Lorena Mancilla:

Thank you, Delia. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us.

Bilingual education is widely recognized as an effective approach to supporting the language development, cultural identities, and long-term academic outcomes of multilingual learners. Most bilingual programs, however, are heavenly concentrated in grades K-5.

The lack of secondary bilingual programs results in a significant gap. More than 2.3 million English learners are enrolled in secondary schools across the United States. And in states such as California, nearly 43% of all ELs are in grades 6 through 12.

 

Consequently, many secondary-level multilingual learners lack access to programs that could help them stay on track academically and in their bilingual development.

Secondary contexts differ in many ways from elementary. These differences make it challenging to quote-unquote copy and paste a program model from an elementary setting into a secondary school.

 

Therefore, designing, implementing, and sustaining secondary bilingual programs requires a systems approach that is responsive to secondary's distinct context.

In our latest research, we examined key characteristics of secondary bilingual programs and relevant state and local policies in California, Illinois, New Mexico, and New York. The analysis draws on interviews with bilingual education policy experts, Teacher education faculty, district leaders from across the four states.

The research highlights promising practices that support secondary bilingual education, as well as persistent challenges or obstacles. In the next few slides, we'll share findings and recommendations from the report that is available today on MPI's website.

 

So to dive into the research findings.

 

Our analysis, identified 3 integrated, interdependent aspects of program success. Policy, capacity, and perseverance, planning and partnerships and Pathways and pipelines. The first one we'll unpack is policy capacity and perseverance. According to the policy experts and district-level bilingual leaders that were interviewed for this project.

 

Clear, actionable state and district policies that establish measurable goals, define accountability structures, and include dedicated funding streams are vital to the long-term success of programs spanning the K-12 system.

 

In addition, because local leaders implement policy, district and school leaders must have the capacity and perseverance to champion bilingual education policies, translate these policies into practice.

 

Spearhead program implementation and expansion efforts, and uphold equitable access to these programs for English learners, immigrant students, and newcomers.

 

Intervweees often identified the absence of actionable policy and of leaders with capacity and perseverance as the foremost challenge facing secondary programs.

 

Examples of Promising Practices highlighted in the report include steps that districts have taken to create their own local district policy that allows newcomers access to dual language programs.

 

Another example for leader capacity building in the report, we highlight some examples of peer leadership networks that are, available in states or within regions that have a bilingual and an EL focus.

 

Working with district leaders to help build up that capacity and perseverance that's needed for these programs to be successful.

 

Victoria, I'll pass it to you.

 

 

00:05:30

Victoria Kim:

Thanks, Lorena. The second theme that we looked at was planning and partnerships. So, interviewees also emphasized that planning and strategic partnerships were crucial to program development, implementation, and sustainability.

 

District-level bilingual leaders identified managing the transition between elementary to middle to high school as a significant challenge, particularly when the secondary bilingual education programs ended up sitting outside a family's local school zone.

Policy experts, faculty, and district staff also all pointed to the challenges of identifying and recruiting teachers who met local hiring needs and conducting meaningful family and student engagement.

 

Enrollment declines often as students transition to secondary schools, potentially due to competing academic or extracurricular interests or a lack of sufficient incentives to remain in the program. But despite these obstacles, districts highlighted strategies such as arranging for secondary school principals to visit feeder schools and engaging families directly through dual language advisory councils, or hosting cultural events that affirm students' bilingual identity.

 

The final theme was pathways and pipelines. So students need clear pathways to, through, and beyond secondary bilingual programs, which depends heavily on a pipeline of strong bilingual educators and the availability of high-quality instructional materials.

 

So higher education faculty and district staff explain that most bilingual teacher preparation programs are designed for elementary school settings, and once in the classroom, educators write or translate their own curricula, often without dedicated time or compensation.

 

Students are also facing their own pathway barriers, often having to choose between staying in the bilingual program and enrolling in electives or additional coursework.

 

However, some districts offered dual enrollment credit and exception protocols so that there was some flexibility for students to remain in the program.

 

And teacher preparation faculty highlighted redesigned teacher preparation models that were delivered entirely in the partner language, and a pipeline program in California that pairs bilingual undergraduates with migrant backgrounds and highly experienced educators who provide ongoing professional development and support until they formally begin the credentialing process.

 

Overall, interviewees shared long-standing obstacles that secondary bilingual programs face, but also have implemented structures and support systems for their students and educators despite those challenges.

 

So designing, implementing, and sustaining middle and high school bilingual programs requires a systems approach grounded in the secondary context.

 

Secondary contexts differ greatly from elementary, and several bilingual education experts reiterated this point. Secondary really is just different.

 

A systems approach provides a holistic view of the complexity of bilingual secondary programs and highlights the interconnected and interdependent relationship among system actors.

 

So secondary bilingual education programs also call for innovative solutions to help states and school districts overcome persistent challenges in program design and implementation.

 

These innovative solutions help ensure that secondary programs and students reach the end of their bilingual pathways, an important achievement considering the investments that states and school districts make, and the sacrifices of students and families during that transition period.

Innovative solutions could also create flexible program entry points for newcomer students who are enrolling in secondary schools that could also benefit from courses taught in their native language while they acclimate to U.S. schools and develop English proficiency.

 

The report offers state and local actors several recommendations for supporting secondary bilingual education programs. The recommendations are organized under the four issue areas.

 Investing strategically in secondary bilingual systems, scaffolding the transition of policy into practice, recognizing the potential of secondary context, and taking a Pipeline Plus approach.

 

So let's, like, take a closer look at each of these.

 

Lorena?

 

 

00:09:25

Lorena Mancilla

Thank you, Victoria. So, to begin with, the first area, or bucket, for our recommendations, invest strategically in the secondary bilingual system.

 

Here, we're talking about strategic investments that are needed to support the entire secondary bilingual system that includes actors and institutions that go beyond school grounds.

 

So, examples of opportunities for action that we highlight in the report include states developing and enacting precise, actionable policies that establish clear program model definitions and measurable goals, create accountability structures, align with applicable federal laws and uphold federal civil rights protections for English learners, as well as allocating appropriate resources at the state or regional level to provide technical assistance to school districts.

 

Another example includes districts establishing clear, comprehensive, local bilingual program policies that provide stable program funding, articulate bilingual pathways for students, especially those pathways that span the K-12 trajectory.

 

These policies can also allocate appropriate resources and staffing at all program levels, outline professional development for staff teaching bilingual courses, and is also establishing accountability systems and measures in English and the partner languages of the secondary bilingual programs.

 

For scaffolding the translation of policy into practice, examples of how states can support local leaders' implementation of bilingual education policies include SEAs and districts conducting an analysis of existing policies that apply to secondary programs to identify barriers or inequities in system procedures or other areas that could impede effective programming. These policies should then be revised or updated as needed. Examples of these inequities, deal with student master schedules and the types of scheduling and courses that are available to students who are on these bilingual pathways. Those inequities were a huge issue raised by the folks that we interviewed for this project.

 

State and regional education agencies, such as county offices of education, could also seek to build internal capacity in secondary bilingual programs to effectively oversee and monitor secondary programs and provide technical assistance to districts and district leaders.

 

And lastly, SEAs, publishing timely, accessible guidance to support local actors in implementing and sustaining these programs. So these were the first two areas of our recommendations, and I'll pass it to Victoria, where she'll cover the other two.

 

 

00:12:26

Victoria Kim

The last two issue areas was recognizing the potential of secondary context. So, the secondary school context presents unique challenges, but also creates opportunities for innovation and creative problem solving. So, approaches to addressing common challenges include SEAs and districts applying an equity lens to master schedules, content and extracurricular offerings, and graduation credit requirements to integrate bilingual coursework into core subjects, SEAs and districts can also prioritize collaborative opportunities for bilingual staff to connect with other programs and work with general education teachers to reduce isolation.

 

Districts also can plan proactively for student transitions to secondary schools and carefully consider potential transportation challenges.

 

And then districts and institutes of higher education, or IHEs, can work strategically to align secondary-level content and extracurricular offerings with post-secondary pathways that recognize and build on students' bilingual skill set.

 

Districts can also pursue creative partnerships with IAGs, consulates, and research organizations to recruit and retain secondary bilingual educators. And then lastly, districts can also conduct outreach beginning in the early grades to sustain family and student engagement.

 

The Pipeline Plus approach requires, building development pipelines for teachers and other actors with vital roles in the secondary bilingual education system.

 

Elements include states and districts investing in strengthening the full ecosystem of bilingual program staff, which includes counselors, administrators, paraprofessionals, and community liaisons.

 

It also includes districts and IHEs developing structured pathways that prepare strong bilingual educators for leadership roles, SEAs, IHEs, and districts collaborating to redesign teacher preparation and credentialing programs to respond more effectively to the secondary context and prepare future educators.

 

 And also, SEAs offering alternative certification pathways for bilingual educators to mitigate teacher shortages. And then lastly, SEAs, IHEs, and districts investing in scholarships, certification fee exemption, and personal grants during student teaching to support and sustain future bilingual educators.

 

Effective and sustainable implementation of secondary bilingual programs remains a puzzle to be solved.

 

Our research findings underscore the need to examine the entire secondary bilingual education systems to identify innovative solutions to the many long-standing challenges that hinder program expansion and progress.

 

To wrap up our presentation, we want to leave you with this final thought. Growing and sustaining secondary bilingual programs that can support successful education trajectories for a range of multilingual learners requires coordinated, system-wide action grounded in a deep understanding of the secondary context.

 

Lorena and I really thank you for your time and attention, and hope that you enjoy the report.

 

Delia, you're muted.

 

 

00:15:20

Delia Pompa:

Thank you.

 

Thank you both. We couldn't think of a better speaker than Shelly Spiegel-Comen, who has her entire career supported expanded bilingual programs. Shelly was a teacher, she was a principal, she was a district specialist, and a county consultant. And after retiring from the Los Angeles County Office of Education, she led, for many, many years, Californians Together, where she today is a strategic advisor. Shelly, turn it over to you.

 

 

00:15:50

Shelly Spiegel-Coleman

I really want to thank MPI for this incredible report. It's so needed, and this is an appropriate time for it.

 

So I do want to address some of the same, pieces that were in the report, but from the perspective of the work that we've been doing in California. First of all, in terms of policy, we think it's really important when you're starting to develop dual immersion or bilingual programs that you take a TK through 12th grade  look, that from the very beginning, the program should be, should be named and should be… the structure of it should be preschool… TK through 12th grade. And what's important about this is to have your local district boards of education to adopt a program design and a commitment to that… to that length and that trajectory over the grade levels.

 

Because what we find is we concentrate on elementary, and then, whoops, the kids are getting ready for middle school, we don't have a design, we don't have a commitment yet, and we're searching for the teachers. But from the very beginning, if we declare it a TK through 12th grade program, and that, we know that that really enhances the expectations for the students, the parents, and for the school district.

 

And then immediately to form a design committee of educators and community to help design that program, all the way through the grade levels.

 

And…Most importantly, what we need to do is start identifying early the middle school and high school sites, because what happens is the kids get ready for middle school, and then where are they going, right? Where are they going? Who's going to be accepting them? Who has the teacher position? So on and so forth. So early on, for the districts to look at where are our appropriate middle and high school sites.

 

And who might be the content teachers? And to look at them early on also.

 

What we've heard from our middle school and high school content teachers is they themselves feel inadequate in terms of their academic language for delivering courses in their content areas. And so, again, supporting those teachers that you've identified early with that academic language that they need, so when the students walk in the door of their classrooms, they feel confident and they feel prepared.

 

And then, building awareness, we have found, even in the elementary schools, you know how parents get nervous around third grade? They go, oh my god, my kid gonna learn English, so on and so forth. Taking parents to classrooms at the end of the stage really just opens their eyes, they get very excited about the potential for their students. And so we think that, parents of elementary school students, maybe in the third grade or fourth grade, they ought to go on a tour, seeing the middle school programs, seeing the high school programs, so that they can get excited and motivated about having their students sustain themselves in the program. And then for the teachers at the middle school and high school, it'd be wonderful for them to go to already implemented middle school and high school programs, again.

 

To have them interact, have time to interact with the staff, to ask the questions that they need to ask, so that they… their… their worries or their concerns might be addressed before the program gets started, right? And likewise, we think taking people on tours of successful programs, especially our board members going to schools that have all three levels in their districts, and to be able to see that trajectory, TK through 12th grade, for board members commits them to a broad, comprehensive policy that they would like to have in their district. Likewise, it's never too early to talk to parents about the seal of biliteracy and biliteracy recognition awards at the different level. I can have to say, personally, when my son and daughter-in-law enrolled my granddaughter in a kindergarten dual immersion program, he called me up and he said, Mom, you know what they told us about the seal of Biliteracy, and that was at kindergarten orientation. So I think that kind of piece, that kind of awareness and that kind of, excitement, is something that you want to build early. 

 

And then, celebrating, having ceremonies, and celebrating the development of bilingualism and biliteracy at the different levels in the school district also generates that excitement, that awareness, and that demand.

 

In terms of implementation, and the report addresses this, the big issue is really the limited opportunities for electives in the high school level. And so there's a couple, and I wrote, be creative. 

 

They have to think about be creative. So, at one middle school in California, they ended up… ended up… the whole school ended up with a 7-period day. Now, the faculty had to vote for it.

 

And as long as they voted for it, the district allowed them to do it. The seventh period, or wherever that happened in a student's schedule, no, the seventh period, it was an elective wheel. And so the entire school, every quarter all the students had four different electives that they had at middle school, because they all went…

 

Okay, they all went through the elective wheel.

 

And then at high school, we've seen CTE programs, especially CTE education programs, which I have to say are very few in number. But CTE… we had… there's one school that had a CTE elective program. Tuesday and Thursday, they were in classes on teaching methodology, all taught in the target language.

 

And then on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they were with students, younger students, helping them who were in dual immersion programs, so that they were using their language for authentic purposes. And so we think, we think it's really important to kind of be creative and think about alternatives to get around this elective wheel, right?

 

So, while the students are in elementary, again, the school board and the secondary schools really need to think about staffing, master schedule, curriculum, instructional materials, professional development, and most importantly, budget, right? Those are really important pieces to work with your administration and with your school board on.

 

There… the other piece is to think about what… what initiatives do you have in your state that you could use to build up… to… to… to… to enhance, this issue of developing bilingualism and multilingualism. So, you know, in many states now, we have what's called graduate profiles, which is what we expect graduate students to do, the elements, the characteristics of a graduate. Well, in California, we changed that. Our State Board of Education adopted what we call a learner profile, which really starts in K and goes through.

 

So it's a profile of learners along the way. And the state board wanted to have seven or eight elements, and they put them out for people to rate which ones were most important, and then there was other. So nothing in that profile said multilingualism. Well, we put on a major writing campaign. We had over 313 people write in multilingualism, and the state board adopted multilingualism as an element of a learner profile. So, to think about what initiatives are going on in your state, and how you can appropriate them and then braiding together, funds that exist, that already exist. And, This is so funny, I can't…

 

So, anyway, so it's like after-school funds, there's all kinds of after-school, after-school projects that could be mariachi groups that are all in the target language. There's a school that we have that has a Korean drum core. That should be all done in the target language. And then dual enrollment.

 

We have students in, high school who are taking college classes, either at the community colleges or at the high school, and some of them are teacher prep, those two could be in the target language.

 

So I want to, just real quickly show you two examples. And the examples I'm showing you are the potential. These took years in the making, but they really are something to think about aspiring to. This is from Grossmont Union High School District. They are, they have a feeder district that has a trilingual program, both Spanish, English, and Mandarin.

 

And so, here's… they already have laid out all the classes, 9 through 12, that the students will take. These two are students who have made the decision that they're just going to go on with their Spanish language development, or they have chosen to go on with their Mandarin language development. And you can see the identified courses. In 10th grade, there's an opening for an elective. In 11th grade, they've kind of chosen the elective for students, Teatro and Espanol, but interesting to see how that works. And then, students who want to continue and all three languages, they also have the courseworks planned out, and of course, they've recruited the teachers. Again, a program that's been in existence for a while, and one that has really taken, clear, clear… created a clear design, recruited the teachers, and have students coming from a feeder school.

 

This one you can't see, but I wanted to show it to you, just for you to know. This is from Glendale Unified School District. It's a K-12 district. They literally have 7 dual immersion tracks in their district. Armenian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Those are the bubbles along the left-hand corner. Then what you can see is the schools that have the immersion programs. At the elementary level, you can see where they go for the middle school, and then you can see where they go for high school. 

 

This year… in 2017, they're going to add on an 8th language, West… West Armenian.

 And, they have been in existence… they started off just with Spanish in 2003. 2012 is when they added French, and this… this… the adding of the languages come from parent requests. The parents have to demonstrate that there are enough parents, at least to fill up a one or two kindergarten classrooms to get it started, but they have this well-articulated and advanced parents who enroll their kids in elementary school know the options for middle school and high school, and have that expectation. So I think, you know, for those of you who are just starting out, this seems like oh my god, how could we get there? But you can if you start, and you start with a vision of making it be a full program. And so I hope that helps. Thank you so much.

 

 

00:27:15

Delia Pompa

Thank you very much, Shelly. As always, you never disappoint. Our next speaker is Dr. Margarita Machado-Casas, who is a renowned scholar and also brings along an array of experiences to contribute to our session today. She is a full professor and chair at the San Diego State University, and currently serves as president of the National Association for Bilingual Education.

 

Her research focuses on immigrant, Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous, and multilingual communities, with an emphasis on identity, literacy, and educational equity. I told you she knew a lot. Margarita, I'm going to turn this over to you now, so we can hear your perspective.

 

 

00:27:56

Margarita Machado

Thank you, thank you, and thank you so much, MPI, for this amazing report. I come to you as president of NAVE, and as part of NAVE this year, and as a professor, and former chair, not current chair, former chair of the Dual Language and English Language Education Department, I've seen different programs across the country, and one thing that I have seen that has been very clear in terms of secondary education is that expanding secondary bilingual education requires strong, well-prepared, and linguistically diverse teacher workforce. It also requires leadership, vision, courage.

 

To support that, that workforce, especially during these challenging times.

 

So, as I look around, and I look at the… and I'm going to give you two examples at the end of Promising Practices, but as I looked around, and there are two main topics and main points that I think about when I think about secondary education, is impact and access. And these priorities lead me to ask the following questions.

 

What access do teachers, students, and communities have to high-quality bilingual education preparation pathways, resources, and opportunities? And how does this access, or lack of access, affect their lives?

 

And with that said, I have 5 key recommendations from the work that we've been doing at NAVE and my own personal research around secondary teacher preparation programs. So, the number one is that expand accessible pathways to Secondary Bilingual certification authorization.

 

One of the questions that was asked is, what can states do to expand these pathways and to…

To many educators, and many of the educators that we work with already possess the bilingual and the language skills, the cultural knowledge, the content expertise, and commitment needed to become outstanding secondary bilingual teachers. But the pathway to certification is costly, confusing, and very disconnected from their realities. So one thing that states can do is simplify the credential requirements, recognizing you know, the demonstrated bilingual proficiency of teachers, support reciprocity across state lines so that it doesn't become so difficult for my teacher in Texas to come to California, or vice versa, and expand bilingual credentials beyond Spanish to include the many languages represented in our communities, which, unfortunately, in many states, is still not a reality.

 

States also must provide tuition assistance, scholarships, stipends, paid residencies, and grants. This is something that we urgently need across the United States. We can't continue saying that bilingual educators are urgently needing what we needed, while at the same time, we're placing financial burden on entering the profession on the, you know, on the very candidates and communities we need the most. A recent study just came out saying that, you know, the average, student loan cost that teachers have when they get out, it's about $40,000 in debt.

$40,000 in debt, and it can take them many, many, many years to get those paid. So it's really critical for states to start looking at scholarships and stipends and grants to support teacher preparation programs, especially teacher preparation programs that are in high need, such as bilingual secondary programs. This is especially important for bilingual paraprofessionals, assistants, substitute teachers and families, and community liaisons. And, you know, I always, as I go around, and I'm calling them, the paraprofessionals are invisible but golden. 

 

These individuals already understand, their students, their languages, their communities, and through our, a Grow Your Own program hat provide flexible coursework, advising, financial assistance, content area preparation, and paid clinical practices in middle school and high schools. They can become highly effective credential bilingual teachers. And there are several examples, including at San Diego State University, there's a partnership with Butte County Office of Education to help paraprofessionals get their credential. Those practices need to continue around the country to… so that we can take advantage of those invisible but golden that are already there in the communities, and they're probably not going to be leaving their communities.

 

And that's really critical. So that's, that is recommendation number one.

Recommendation number two is strengthening university-district partnerships and invest in secondary bilingual mentors.

 

Teacher candidates need sustained clinical experiences in high-quality dual-language classrooms. Not just brief observations. Since I've been going around the country, I've been looking at the amount of the hours that they're doing clinical practice or clinical experiences.

 

Oftentimes, they're very brief observations, and not even in bilingual settings, not even in bilingual classrooms, not in a math bilingual classroom, not in a science bilingual classroom. So universities and districts can jointly identify, prepare, and compensate mentor teachers, and that's important because many of the mentor teachers are not compensated enough to do the work that it requires to really mentor a future teacher, coordinate coursework with classroom practice, and create residency models in which candidates gradually assume responsibility for instruction.

 

For secondary educators, these preparations must be content-specific. Not just content-specific, but bilingual content-specific. Bilingual mathematics, bilingual science, bilingual social studies, or English teachers must understand both the subject matter and the linguistic demands of that discipline. 

 

For example. A future bilingual science teacher might study in a language development strategy in a university course, and then apply that while co-teaching in a unit or an ecosystem with an experienced mentor, candidates, future teachers, have to learn, must learn how students use language, because language is the key, to explain mathematical reasoning, develop scientific arguments, interpret historical evidence, and engage critically with the literature.

 

In several of the programs, and I can think about three different programs, two here in California and two in Texas, they emphasize that every bilingual teacher is both a content teacher and a language development teacher, and that language is key to content, access to content. The goal is not to lower academic expectation for multilingual learners, the goal is to provide the linguistic access.

 

Students need to participate fully in that rigorous academic work.

 

The third recommendation is at university levels, in teacher bilingual programs, we need professors… doctoral professorship pathways that really look at the challenge of working, or the challenges that long-term ELs face in the secondary level. We do know that after elementary school, if a student has not been reclassified, then they're called long-term English language learners, meaning that they have been in an EL pathway since they were in elementary school, and they're still in the EL pathway in the secondary program. And we have to build pathways of experienced bilingual middle school and high school educators to earn doctoral degrees and become university professors, researchers, and leaders in secondary teacher preparation. If we want to expand secondary bilingual programs across the country, we need the professors. And we need professors that understand that many English language learners and multilingual learners reach middle school and high school, and they have spent six or more years in U.S. schools without meeting that criteria for a classification, and that these students are not newcomers. They may communicate, you know, that they need the additional support. So we have to invest in teacher preparation programs, in doctoral programs, professorship pathways that really look at what are the needs of our English language learners when it comes to secondary pathway. I think that as we look around the United States, we do that very… we do that in a… we do that a lot in the elementary, but as we get to middle school and high school, that is something that is not addressed, and this has to be addressed because it's a national issue.

 

And it's an issue that we have to face it, not by blaming the students, not by blaming the families or the teachers, but by examining the systems that have served these students for many years without producing the outcomes that they deserve. So states should really examine their data, look at the teacher pathways, look at the pathways for doctoral… future doctoral students, and provide those funding for the preparation of future professors that will be teaching in the secondary programs.

 

My next recommendation is build coherent bilingual pathways from elementary all the way through high school. And we frequently celebrate success for elementary dual language programs without asking, what happens when those students get to middle school and high school, and without continuation plans, students lose opportunities to develop advanced biliteracy and academic language. So, states can incentivize districts to connect elementary dual language programs with bilingual middle school and high schools. Advanced bilingual classes, dual credit programs, career pathways and capstone projects, and of course, the Seal of biliteracy.

 

One great example of this, is the Bilingual education student organization, BESO, that is now across the United States, where you were in elementary school, a club, a program is… is… is started that begins to look at the importance of being a teacher. Specifically, you know, let's say you have a student that, you know, that loves math, right? Hey, you know you can become a math teacher, a bilingual, and VESO helps them all the way through. Enveso is at the elementary, and we call them vecitos, at the middle school, at the high school, and also at the university level, and at the graduate level.

 

A student that begins a dual language program in kindergarten should be able to continue developing both languages through graduation, and also use that, right, and what they love, to become future educators. And so really looking at those bilingual pathways from elementary all the way through high school and beyond is really critical.

 

The second question that I was asked was about promising practices in preparing secondary bilingual teachers, and I wanted to highlight two main practices that we see across the United States. Number one, clinically grounded… clinically grounded preparation through strong university district partnerships. At several of the universities across the United States, candidates connect research and the work with the classroom practice in linguistically diverse middle and high schools.

 

They learn along… they learn alongside experienced educators how to scaffold rigorous content, develop academic language with each discipline, and access learning equitably to respond to adolescent and different stages of bilingual and biliteracy development. So it's really important that there is… grounded, form preparation through university-to-district partnerships. 

 

The second one is asset-based community-connected teacher preparation programs.

Secondary Bilingual teacher education should begin with languages, identities, and the cultures and the knowledge and experiences that candidates, that adolescents and students bring into the classroom. Many future bilingual teachers were in English language… were English language themselves, including me, right? Some grew in, grew up interpreting for their families, and some were discouraged from speaking, their language at their home. And many of them in our communities do not know that they can be bilingual math teachers, that they can be bilingual content educators. So really working closely with the community to enhance who they are, to enhance their identity, and really, at the same time understand that being bilingual does not automatically prepare someone to teach bilingually. Candidates must develop academic language and literacy in both languages, understanding by literacy development, and designing equitable assessments and select materials that accurately represent students and their histories.

And so, you know, this work is…This work must be systematic, and I think that that's something that we have seen across the United States. States must establish supported policies and sustainable funding, universities must offer accessible, rigorous, and flexible preparation pathways.

 

Districts must provide strong clinical placement, mentoring, employment opportunities, and continued professional learning.

 

And we have to connect across the states. We have to share successful models, advocate for resources, and ensure that educators, families, and our communities have voice in policy decisions. Ultimately, secondary bilingual education is not simply about maintaining a program, it is about preparing young people to graduate with advanced academic knowledge, bilingualism, by literacy, cultural competence, and the ability to lead in this interconnected world. And our multilingual students already possess a extraordinary linguistic and cultural assets.

I think one thing that I wanted to mention is the need to expand, research around this topic across the United States. As we traveled with NABE, that is one of the main questions that we ask.

Whereas we need more research that supports this, so I will leave you with that, and and really with the thought that if we were serious about expanding secondary bilingual education and addressing the needs of long-term English language learners, we must be equally serious about investing in the teachers, the programs, and the ecosystems that make this possible across the United States.

 

Thank you.

 

 

00:41:57

Delia Pompa

Thank you so much, Margarita, and thank you to all our speakers today.

 

 We… both our speakers, our invited speakers, happen to be from California. Lorena and Victoria both. Tell us about other programs you found, or what was going on in other states. Did you see the same level of activity, and was it any different?

 

 

00:42:20

Lorena Mancilla

 

No, I think, well, I'm gonna chime in first here, Victoria. I think that the challenges that we found were pretty consistent across the four states. And also, in many ways, supporting research on secondary bilingual program that has been published.

 

One of the… one of the nuances, I guess, that caught our attention a lot was the… the perspective from the… from a student's experience with equitable access to those electives.

 

So, I know, Shelly, I'm grateful, Shelly, that you shared an example, that elective wheel, because that was one of the biggest challenges that came up from faculty we spoke to, to district leaders we spoke to, and policy experts that we spoke to that were aware of it as an issue in the field.

 

So, how do you take, you know, a junior high student, or an incoming freshman at a high school, and they're seeing this wealth of options and electives, but suddenly are faced with, wait, because 

 

I'm in this program and on this pathway, these aren't available, and I don't have access to this?

That is a challenge that was brought up, and there are some creative ways. We highlight a few in the report, and Shelly reiterated some.

 

But I also want to mention, Delia, that one of the questions that has come in was about, you know, the political landscape.

 

And one of the reasons that we chose to highlight state and district policies is that, states and districts are able to establish policies that support these programs for all students. Multilingual learners in our work is broadly used because there are students that fall under the multilingual learner umbrella that are not formally identified as English learners, or they're former English learners, or, you know, they're long-term English learners. There's a variety of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds that are falling under the umbrella of multilingual learner when used to talk about secondary programs. 

 

So we have seen states, we spoke with folks that, you know, talked about their state and or district seal of biliteracy and the policies around obtaining their seal of biliteracy.

 

As a part of this project, I had the opportunity to actually attend a Seal of Bilingual literacy graduation event at a district, and to see a packed house celebrating so many students and everything that they've achieved in their K-12 bilingual pathway was amazing. Victoria, is there anything that you'd like to add?

 

 

00:45:05

Victoria Kim

Yeah, I'll add really quickly, the reason we chose these specific states were because of their extensive history with bilingual education, and I think California serves as a unique example because they're actively in the process of rebuilding their bilingual education system after the English-only laws.

 

So I think it's a really good example for states that are, you know, at the beginning or the starting stages of trying to build out that support for their multilingual learners.

 

 

00:45:34

Delia Pompa: 

Thanks.

 

Shelly, one of the elements that's brought up a couple of times in the report, and then you also, talked about it without being very specific about it, but you represent an advocacy organization.

 

And programs get developed within school systems and at the state level, but there seems to be a big role for advocates to play. You gave a great example of that write-in campaign to write in multilingual education. Can you talk about some other things that, as an advocate,how can… how can you foster the development of these secondary programs, or how can any advocate do that?

 

Oh, you're on mute.

 

 

00:46:13

Shelly Spiegel-Coleman

Okay, we are excited to tell you that in this year's budget that's sitting on the governor's

Oh, that will be sitting on the governor's desk next week. And it was in… he adopted it, finally, in his version of the budget. We initiated a bill that would create a new pathway for, for Bilingual teachers. And what we are looking at is the pool of multilingual learners who have… who have been awarded the State Seal of Bilingual literacy

 

Those are our potential new bilingual teachers. And in California, last year, we don't have this year's numbers, but in 2025, over 75,000 students received the seal of Bilingual literacy, speaking over 40 languages. So we say, and this is what we said to get this $10 million in the state budget, if only 5% every year of those high school seniors went into Bilingual teacher prep programs. We would have no shortage. So just from 2025, 5% of 75,000 is 3,750 bilingual teachers who speak over 40 languages. So our bill was for districts to get a grant, a 5-year grant, to build a pathway from high school students could be to community college to four-year universities, or high school to four-year universities. The governor did add also classified people into that pathway, so we are really hoping that we can, that with the work that we did with advocacy in terms of the issue of the shortage of bilingual teachers, and of course, many of them potentially going into secondary programs where the of content teachers, secondary bilingual content teachers, is great. We're hoping that that pathway that districts now will create for teachers to come back to their districts. Students who are in the districts go through the program and come back to teach in their districts is a real inspiring potential. We're excited about it.

 

 

00:48:22

Delia Pompa

Please let me remind you all to put your questions into the chat box, and we'll be looking for those. In the meantime, there was a whole set of questions around higher education and beyond high school links, in, in, secondary dual language programs. These questions raised issues like, can you have fifth-year programs? Are there opportunities for dual credit programs?

 

Are there ways that you can push or continue, let me say, secondary bilingual education into the college area? Margarita, do you know of any research around that area, or do you know of any examples of any of those kinds of ideas that were asked about?

 

 

00:49:07

Margarita Machado

Yeah, so… so I know in Texas, for example, at the University of Texas, San Antonio, also, I believe, Austin, and there are dual credit programming, and also here in California, there's several dual credit programming that, support that, and support the expansion of Grow Your Own Pathways, to continue from the high school, secondary, to the university level.

 

Also, there are several bilingual bills across the country. I can think about… well, in California, we have the AB2325, that's the Bilingual to Teach program we have, for example, in New York, there is the S2657 Bilingual Teachers for Tomorrow that works starting in middle and high school, all the way to the university. 

 

Massachusetts has the Education… the Bilingual Education Trust that really focuses on growing your own bilingual dual language teachers, and from the high school, and specifically, dual language certification. In Illinois, the HB3023, and that one, what it does is, to support the, the dual credit, and also retention of bilingual educators. 

 

And in Washington, there's the HB122, aid and HB1565, recent initiatives really to look at, stipends and support, from the, high school for dual credit all the way to, teacher preparation programs. So yeah, there are some examples of Promising Practices across the United States, but we need a lot more.

 

 

00:50:42

Delia Pompa

Thank you.

 

 I'm going to open this question to all of you. It's a question that wasn't written about specifically in the report, but, people are wondering, within the current political climate and some of the attacks on bilingual education, some of the changes at the federal level that have been put forward.

 

How does this impact the development of secondary bilingual programs when there have been none before? And also, how does the climate affect the expansion just within communities?

 

I open… I think you know the parameters of that question are broad, so I would open up to you any possibility of your take on it, what, whether it was commented on to the writers by the people you interviewed. For those of you in the field, Shelly and Margarita, what are you hearing? People are kind of curious about this.

 

Who wants to go first?

 

 

00:51:40

Margarita Machado

I can go first. Go ahead.

 

 

00:51:42

Lorena Mancilla 

Go ahead, Margarita.

 

 

00:51:43

Margarita Machado

No, no, I'm thinking about it from the… from the lens of, teacher preparation programs across… secondary teacher preparation programs. And, in the visits we have been recently been having, is we've been noticing a decrease in the number of content, teachers coming into the field. And I think that is something that we are…very, very concerned about. Multiple things are happening. Reduce, grants and scholarships for those teacher preparation programs. I think it's one of the main, you know, issues here. 

 

And I think as we think about the current climate, and when we think about secondary and high school, we have to think about English language learners and how the term English language learner is being used as a weapon, across the United States. And so, when we think about a secondary teacher that is a bilingual secondary teacher, they have to work with English language learners.

 

You know, the Ayala office is gone, for example, right? I mean, this is something we continue to see. 

 

And so, you know, we're having conversations about what is the correlation between how, how the term English language learners is being used, the lack of funding and the reduced funding for English, you know, for teachers working with English language learners, and for, secondary teacher preparation programs. Those, I think that there is a very direct alignment with the decrease in, at, you know, students coming into Secondary Bilingual programs, and everything that is happening around the country with how English language learners are, are being addressed, and, and the funding that we're… that's being cut across the United States.

 

 

00:53:37

Shelly Spiegel-Coleman

So, I would just add that we've started a whole new campaign in California. We started it two years ago when Miguel Cardona was in the Department of Education, saying bilingualism is our superpower, and so what we decided in California is that we're working towards a comprehensive piece of legislation in 2028 called Multilingual Education for All, which means that every student in California would have the opportunity for language study, pre-K through secondary, but for multilingual learners, English learners, the default program would be multilingualism and multiliteracy. So after the administration came in, we went out and we did focus groups, we said, is this the time?

 

And everybody said, this is exactly the time. So we have 8 working groups talking about, what it would take to build this comprehensive program and piece of legislation than looking for 7 years of implementation after the bill passes. 

 

So, I think we have to…those of us… I mean, and, you know, I have to say, California is somewhat of an oasis. I know many of you out there are sitting in places where this is not possible, but I think we have to aspire to our potential, and so we have to look where that is. Wherever it is, we have to take it, and we have to move with it, because, otherwise.

 

Otherwise, what Margarita talked about in terms of less students being engaged, less students enrolling, so on and so forth, that will keep going. We need to create a new atmosphere talking about assets and multilingual education for all.

 

00:55:12

Margarita Machado

And can I add to that? I think that's so important, what Shelly just said, that sharing what is happening across the United States, because you're absolutely right. There are many states where, you know, that are struggling to do what California is doing, and I think that there is a lot that we can learn from the work being done across the country to support other states.

 

And other places that are, you know.

 

I don't have the privilege that California has in many ways, yes. Thank you, Shelly.

 

 

00:55:41

Lorena Mancilla 

And I think one of the other nuggets that we picked up from the work that we did with these interviews was hearing how often district leaders mentioned that they were grateful for having supportive school boards that recognized the times that we're living in, and the value of being able to speak more than one language for students in the future. So these were often school board members that in the end, surprised the bilingual directors we were speaking to because of the fact that they recognized it as a value, and they were very supportive of finding ways to expand the programs, to support the programs, or to keep them going.

 

In terms of, like, enrollment declines, and Victoria here, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the times that enrollment declines came up in the research was often just in reference specifically to newcomers, where districts were seeing fewer newcomer students, but again, a majority of the students that were in the programs had been students that were in the program since their elementary years. But speaking quickly about newcomers, because there were a few questions that came in about how do secondary programs support newcomers, I know that often the perception or the assumption is, is that if you have a dual language two-way immersion program and you're a secondary student coming in, that you're not going to have access to this program. 

 

And that wasn't necessarily the case. Several of the district leaders that we spoke to, and we do mention this in the report, shared with us ways that their district created policies specifically to give newcomer students in these secondary grades, grades 6 through 12 access to the programs.

These districts, for example, created their eligibility criteria, found ways to assess or quote-unquote, screen students, newcomer students, to make sure that they would be able to keep up, with the target language, to have the literacy skills in the target language, and if they were not formally enrolled in the dual program, these districts came up with ways to make sure that these students had access to some of the bilingual coursework, to support them in their transition to U.S. schools.

 

So we do talk about that in the report.

 

                                                         

00:57:59

Shelly Spiegel-Coleman: 

There is a school district in San Diego County, El Cajon High School District, and they do have kind of this dual track, so where the differentiation is for newcomers is really where language… is language and literacy, right? So they have a track for language and literacy For newcomers, and then for students who come in who've been in a bilingual program, they're in a different language class, but in content classes, they're together.

 

So it's an interesting design in terms of how they've done that in El Cajon.

 

 

00:58:31

Delia Pompa

Well, I wish we had time for more questions. We're at the end of the session. I know there are questions out there. Please, I know any of our speakers would be happy to answer any of your questions, so I hope you'll follow up with them.

 

I want to thank you all for… for… thank you, all the speakers, for paying attention to what's happening today and integrating what we can do in the future.

 

And we'd like to thank our entire audience for being here today. I want to remind you that the report that is being issue today is secondary schools. I'm going to do that again. I botched it in the beginning because my screen went blank, so let me try that again. The report is paving the way for Secondary Bilingual education programs and analysis of Policy and Practice, and we hope you will access it. I want to tell you also that there's an audio and video recording and other resources available on our website, MPI's website.

 

And also, any reporters on the call can contact Michelle Mittelstadt at [email protected]. I think it's on your… yes, it is on the screen with any questions you have. Again, thank you to our speakers, and thank you to all our participants for being here to speak about this very important topic.