At Pueblo Elementary, a dual-language school in Scottsdale, Ariz., students, including English learners, learn core subjects in both English and Spanish.
The schedule looks like this: Students in kindergarten through 3rd grade study science, math, and Spanish language arts in Spanish while learning social studies and English/language arts in English. Then, starting in 4th grade, they switch, with social studies in Spanish and math in English.
The classroom, which is a mix of native English speakers and English learners, in Pueblo would not have been possible a few years ago. Arizona’s English-only law, passed in 2000, prohibited English learners from joining programs taught in any language other than English. Although the law was repealed in 2019, English learners are still a minority in the Pueblo program.
Most students at Pueblo Elementary are coming from non-Spanish-speaking homes, because their parents are choosing for their students to become multicultural and biliterate, said Shelley Hummon, the school’s principal.
While there is a misconception that dual-language immersion programs mainly benefit English learners, experts said, a school like Pueblo is an example of how English learners aren’t always guaranteed access to these specialized programs.
There are some fears by parents that dual language programs will confuse children, and prevent them from learning English or performing well academically.
More than 3,600 dual-language immersion programs are operating across the United States. As of 2021 data, schools in 44 states offer these programs, of which California, Texas, New York, Utah, and North Carolina account for almost 60% of all programs. About 80% of all dual-language immersion programs use Spanish as the partner language to English, followed by Chinese (8.6%) and French (5.0%).
Less is known about how many English language learners are enrolled in dual-language immersion programs. The Century Foundation found that only 7.9% of all English language learners were in these programs as of the 2019-20 school year.
Even as the number of programs grows, federal policy changes could challenge their expansion.
President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps that experts say can reduce support for bilingual education, such as declaring English the official language of the country and gutting the U.S. Department of Education’s office of English language acquisition. Most recently, the Trump administration’s 2026 fiscal year proposal calls for eliminating Title III funding, which helps schools hire bilingual tutors and more.
Despite those obstacles, dual-language immersion programs have the potential to help all students, said Lucrecia Santibañez, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles’ School of Education and Information Studies.
“Because we have fewer and fewer spaces in our country where we can all come together, especially in big cities, dual-language immersion [programs] are a very authentic, very instructionally driven way to bring people together,” she said.
How dual-language immersion works
There are typically two different kinds of dual-language immersion programs.
In a “90-10" program, students spend 90% of class time in the partner language and 10% in English, gradually shifting to a 50/50 balance as they advance.
The other program starts at 50/50, with students alternating between the two languages, either by weeks or days at a time or per subject matter. Dual-language immersion could look like a program at a school, or it can be a dual-language school, and students often opt in via a lottery system.
Dual-language immersion programs are often mistakenly thought of as students only learning another language, experts said.
“There’s a real effort on the part of teachers to make it very much about assets-based [and] the strengths of the communities where the programs are based,” said Santibañez, and putting an emphasis on “the personal histories and narratives and voices of the people that make up the program.”
Apolonio Trejo, assistant professor of bilingual education at Our Lady of the Lake University, teaches his graduate students about six benefits delivered by dual language programs: academic excellence, linguistic proficiency, cognitive development, cultural competence, personal identity and confidence, and social and community impact.
Examples of skills gained through these programs include stronger critical thinking and problem-solving skills, because students are required to read, write, and do work in two languages. Dual language also enhances students’ memory and ability to focus as they begin to master both languages and eventually can switch between them, Trejo said.
The programs also expose students to diverse cultures and people so they can develop an open mind at an early age and engage in multilingual environments, Trejo said.
The Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate federal Title III funding could threaten dual-language programs’ existence. In states and at the school level, the future of dual-language programs mostly hinges on how much money individual programs rely on Title III and state funding, said Santibañez.
Significant cuts to Title III would definitely make it harder to really expand these programs, both on the programmatic side and through the teacher training and recruitment and retention side, she added.
The appeal of dual language is different than a bilingual education
While the idea of bilingualism in public education was originally intended for immigrant students to maintain their identity and culture, all while developing their abilities in English, the development of dual-language programs changed those dynamics in the 1990s so that they served a higher percentage of native English speakers, said Patrick Proctor, a professor of bilingual language and literacy at Boston College.
“The original goals of dual-language were that you bring in English speakers with Spanish speakers, you put them together, foster cross-cultural awareness, intercultural friendships, things like that,” he said.
Today, dual-language is marketed differently depending on the audience: for English learners, it’s framed as a way to learn English while preserving their native language, which is critical for identity development and intergenerational communication, said Proctor.
For native English speakers, dual-language programs are often marketed as offering long-term financial benefits: They’re told that if they know another language, they will be more appealing applicants to colleges and employees once they enter the work force, he added.
Who benefits also depends on who has access
In Los Angeles, Santibañez worked on a brief addressing equity challenges in the district’s dual-language immersion programs.
The district made the programs accessible to English learners by being intentional about reaching the 50/50 balance. For example, if a student spoke a partner language and applied to a dual-language program, they would get acceptance priority, Santibañez said.
“That’s important because then you make it a design feature,” she said, which gives you the ability to “really recruit [new] people into your program.”
The way some programs were presented made it hard for non-English-speaking families to access them. For example, a program website or social media promotion of it was filled with details entirely in English. Or the appeals for parents who are non-English speakers, such as the cultural appeal, weren’t included in the marketing, Santibañez found.
Schools were “highlighting the enrichment part of it, the foreign language part of it, as opposed to the dual [language], the collaboration, the partner language,” said Santibañez. “That heritage aspect of it would be highlighted less.”
Recommendations in Santibañez’s brief include increasing transportation options for students who live further away and opening dual-language programs in neighborhoods where English learners live.
These factors were taken into account at Brockton Public Schools, in Brockton, Mass., which started off with a two-way dual-language program focused on Spanish in 2002.
The district then expanded to include Portuguese and French, and eventually combined all programs at the Manthala George, Jr. Global Studies School, said Kellie Jones, director of bilingual education at the Brockton district.
One additional step the district has taken is creating the role of bilingual community relations facilitators. These 15 staff members work with families that need language support to be informed and access all of the opportunities available, like the dual-language school.
At Pueblo Elementary, enrollment has grown over time. Within the last year, there has been an increase of about 30 kids, according to Hummon. Yet only about 2% of its student population are English learners.
Despite the low number of English learners, Hummon said the school focuses on celebrating the broad array of backgrounds of the students it serves.
“We have a pretty diverse population made up of lots of different cultural backgrounds of our students, and we do a lot of things within our curriculum to celebrate different cultures,” she said.
While there is a growing interest among English learners to join the school, there is a concern expressed by parents that it can be challenging for this group of students to benefit from a dual-language program. But Hummon tells parents who tour her school that learning another language, whether English or Spanish, is critical.
“The ability to understand each other, even in another language, is a soft skill,” she said, one that “is always going to be needed and always going to be necessary.”
