Bilingual Mandate Challenges Chicago's Public Preschools

Christian Hernandez points to letters in English as teacher Vanessa Mendoza watches at the Peck Early Childhood Center. His class is among 60 across Chicago that already offer bilingual instruction.

—John Zich for Education Week

By Mary Ann Zehr

Chicago

Administrators in the Chicago public schools are seeking to strike the right balance between providing guidance and permitting flexibility as they put in place the nation’s first state mandate for providing bilingual education to preschoolers.

New rules approved by the Illinois state board of education in June flesh out a January 2009 change that essentially extends the same requirements for educating English-language learners in K-12 public schools to 3- and 4-year-olds in public preschool centers. ( "Illinois May Mandate ELL Rules for Preschool," April 28, 2010.)

The new rules say that if a public preschool center has at least 20 students who speak the same language, it must offer bilingual education. By July 2014, they also say, all lead preschool teachers with ELLs in their classrooms must have an endorsement in bilingual education or English as a second language. Currently, many Illinois preschools rely on teacher assistants to provide...