The fate of federal support for English learners is in crisis as the national office dedicated to these 5.3 million students recently got decimated, researchers and educators say.
The office of English language acquisition, commonly known as OELA, was gutted in the mass dismissal of U.S. Education Department employees on March 11, seemingly left with a sole employee, its most recent acting director, Beatriz Ceja-Williams.
A former Education Department employee, who asked not to be named, said that a human resource officer initially sent an email saying the OELA unit of a little more than a dozen people was abolished. Staff were almost immediately locked out of official systems.
But the former employee later learned what Education Week confirmed on March 26 from press officials: OELA and the nearly $900 million a year Title III federal grant program it oversaw, which support English-learner education, were absorbed into the office of elementary and secondary education, or OESE.
“The department is committed to fulfilling its statutory obligation to prepare English learners to attain English proficiency and develop high levels of academic achievement in English,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications for the department, said in a statement.
On April 9, the department’s press office told Education Week via email that “Beatriz Ceja-Williams [the most recent acting director of OELA] remains the best point of contact [for] educators, state leaders, and researchers on ELA programs at the department.” Officials did not confirm who else remains at OELA. Ceja-Williams directed Education Week to department press officials for comment.
Since its creation through the No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in 2002, OELA has served as a dedicated voice within the larger department advocating for the needs and rights of English learners in broader conversations around federal funding and support for students in need, researchers said. It has always operated with limited staffing and resources.
In light of the latest reorganization and cuts to OELA—to the department overall—researchers, state leaders, and others working directly with the office said they are wary about the impact on English learners.
“I think it’s hard to continue to grow infrastructure when we have a small office within the larger office, with one person,” said Chris Montecillo Leider, an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who is working on a grant project funded by OELA.
OELA played a role in compliance, resources, and support
More than a dozen organizations condemned the changes in a March 21 letter to Congress, warning of possible legal violations in eliminating OELA as a standalone office.
“It is our position that this department has acted haphazardly in removing nearly all experienced EL staff and shifting a much-reduced OELA under OESE, without notifying Congress or providing a plan to ensure that these changes do not negatively impact the students and families that depend on these programs,” the letter said.
Over the years, OELA has provided resources, services, and public reporting, including:
- submitting a biennial report to Congress on the academic achievement and language acquisition of English learners;
- providing technical assistance to states and districts on Title III funding;
- running the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, which houses webinars, toolkits, playbooks, and fact sheets with the latest research findings on English-learner education;
- visiting states and districts and creating compliance agreements to ensure English learners’ civil rights were upheld;
- overseeing professional development and other research grants around English-learner education.
Though Title III funding is dedicated to English learners, these students are also supported by the far larger Title I funding pot, one of OESE’s main responsibilities. The challenge OELA faced was helping the Education Department make a coordinated effort for these students, said Kenji Hakuta, a professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, who studied English learners for years.
“The OELA office has always had to kind of play an assertive role within the department to make sure that English learners were appropriately and adequately understood within Title I programs,” Hakuta said.
While most educators understand the basics about English learners, such as that they need to learn English in school, they often don’t have a deeper understanding of the nuances at play, such as their varying cultural and academic background, and what research says about the best instructional practices for them, said Amaya Garcia, the director of PreK–12 Research and Practice at New America. (The left-leaning think tank signed onto the March letter to Congress.)
That’s where OELA previously stepped in—to provide guidance, ensure compliance, and answer pressing questions about how to best meet English learners’ needs. Now, Garcia and other experts worry that states and districts won’t have the necessary institutional knowledge or expertise to support English learners.
“Yes, there are statutory requirements, they have to provide the money for Title III, but that might be all they do,” Garcia said.
Expecting state education officials to already possess the expertise needed to best educate English learners is risky, said Kathleen Leos, former OELA director under former President George W. Bush.
“What is the best way to educate all of our students in this country, especially language learners? It’s through multi-language learning and development in both language and content,” Leos said. “Does the type of expertise exist at the state level to the district level to actually do that for every student in the country, and then specifically focused on language learners? The answer is no.”
Montserrat Garibay, a former OELA director under President Joe Biden, and others also fear what will happen regarding civil rights violations of English learners following cuts to both OELA and the Education Department’s office for civil rights.
“The reality is that there are states [that] don’t care about educating English learners who are not providing them with their civil rights,” Garibay said.
Some states, such as Tennessee, are currently advancing efforts to undermine federal law permitting undocumented students access to a free public education.
Unanswered questions remain over English learner programs
Leaders from states with large English learner populations have mixed responses on what it means to work with OELA moving forward.
Officials at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education on April 8 expressed concern over cuts to OELA staff and other research funding programs in the Education Department.
The Nevada Department of Education’s Title III and English Learner and Immigrant Student Program, meanwhile, said on April 9 that it “has continued to engage with the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) to ensure alignment with federal guidance and to receive technical assistance.”
Meanwhile, OELA oversaw a portfolio of about 107 active grant programs, including opportunities for classroom teachers working with English learners to get training and licensure, and for researchers to study student outcomes. Recipients of the national professional development grants say they don’t know how renewal of funding will work this fall after the dismissal of the office’s program officers.
There are also usually policy recommendations that come out of this work, either at the district, state, or even regional level, said Trish Morita-Mullaney, an associate professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at Purdue University and a current NPD grantee.
Morita-Mullaney, who is working with districts to scale up capacity for dual-language programs, noted that NPD grants are reimbursable on a fiscal year calendar, which begins Oct. 1. OELA program officers would check in with grantees on their progress, scrutinize their work, and then manually approve dollars for the following year.
“I need to make decisions in the summer. If that money is not going to flow for year five, or if it’s going to be delayed, do we, in good faith, hire people for the academic year and pay tuition for the academic year with the hopes of reimbursement?” Morita-Mullaney said. “I can tell you that some institutions are not going to want to take that risk.”
Montecillo Leider, who is on her second year of an NPD grant working with a grow-your-own program for bilingual teachers, said communication with OELA has been limited since the March dismissals. She, too, remains unclear as to how continued funding will work this fall.
The limited communication as a result of losing program officers is a major concern, not just from a funding aspect, Morita-Mullaney said.
“Having a program officer available is not just a technocrat pushing the button and saying that my project’s in good standing. They provided substantive support, and I just respect them and honor them so deeply for their expertise and for their advisement,” Morita-Mullaney said.
Researchers, including Leslie Villegas, a senior policy analyst at New America, also wonder what will happen to all the online resources in the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. The Education Department did not respond to a question about the fate of the federal contract behind this resource.
“Is it going to be maintained? Is it going to continue to be developed? Or are we just entering kind of like a dark space for English-learner research and data?” Villegas said.
