Former U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona championed multilingualism for all students, as well as improved programming for the nation’s English learners.
One of the last major projects he oversaw in his tenure at the U.S. Department of Education was the office of English language acquisition’s dual-language immersion project: a publication of four playbooks with detailed guidance for educators on how to establish and sustain dual-language immersion programs.
What these programs look like can vary across the country but typically, a dual-language immersion program covers kindergarten through 5th grade and students learn academic content while also receiving language instruction in both English and a partner language—often Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, or French.
The playbooks offer educators a centralized collection of data and insights on how to best support this kind of instruction, said Conor Williams, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, whose research is referenced in the guides.
The playbooks are organized by topics such as policy considerations for these programs, the foundational conditions needed to open these programs, staffing concerns, and the role family and community engagement play. From there, the playbooks break down information by audience: state leaders, district leaders, school leaders, and family and community leaders.
“I think that it matters to have these different thematic elements of dual language broken out like that,” Williams said. “I think that makes it easier to plug and play where your community might need to look or might not need to look.”
Though it remains unclear whether the current Trump administration would promote and prioritize multilingual education, including dual-language immersion, Williams and others note that bipartisan state and local demand for such programming predates even the Biden administration.
Title III funds which cover supplemental programs for English are not dedicated to dual-language programs but are often used by states for this, Williams. The fate of these federal dollars remains unclear as the Trump administration reviews various federal budgets and grant programs. The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to EdWeek’s request for comment prior to publication.
Case studies show how dual-language immersion can help improve academic performance
Researchers have for years found dual-language immersion programs to benefit all students by promoting bilingualism in academic contexts.
These programs benefit English learners in terms of improving their linguistic skills in their home language and English as well as boosting their academic performance, Williams said.
There are long-term economic benefits as well.
“We know that employers in a range of sectors, from health care to technical services, are more likely to rely on employees with foreign language skills. The research also tells us that learning another language helps kids to be more creative, more nimble, and better able to make good decisions,” Cardona said at an event launching the playbooks in December.
The playbooks provide case studies from California, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Utah, the states with the highest number of dual-language immersion programs in the country (about 200 each).
Conservative states like Texas and Utah have made major strides both in financial support for these programs and pedagogical commitments to this type of education, Williams said.
For instance, in the staffing playbook, school leaders are advised to “ensure support structures are in place for ongoing professional learning and growth” of teachers. It notes that Utah “provides a series of grade-span-specific collaboration protocols and [dual-language immersion] partner-teacher resources.”
Staffing concerns, including recruiting and retaining enough qualified personnel to teach in dual-language immersion programs, create some of the biggest challenges in opening up these programs across the country, Williams’ research has found.
That’s why the playbooks recommend district leaders “establish specific bilingual teacher pathways for current bilingual staff,” “establish ‘grow-your-own’ programs specifically tailored to preparing a supply of local educators,” and “pursue creative recruitment efforts and incentives.”
The playbooks provide some examples of how these approaches work, such as a Texas district offering scholarships to paraprofessionals to enroll in a local pathways program, a California district creating a program to help existing bilingual educators get a bilingual teaching credential, and the Boston public schools partnering with the mayor’s office to obtain H1-B visas for credentialed immigrant teachers.
“The more bilingual teachers we train, the more dual language programs we can offer, and the more that we can offer, the more we can ensure that everybody gets access who wants it,” Williams said.
