Mireya Barrera no quería pelear.

Durante años, se sentó en las reuniones con los docentes de educación especial de su hijo, luchando por mantener una sonrisa mientras entendía poco de lo que decían. En las ocasiones poco comunes en que se pedía ayuda a otros docentes que hablaban el idioma de Barrera, el español, las conversaciones seguían siendo vacilantes porque no eran intérpretes calificados.

Pero cuando su hijo Ian entró en la escuela secundaria, Barrera decidió invitar a un voluntario bilingüe de una organización local sin ánimo de lucro para que se sentara con ella y recordara sus derechos al equipo escolar.

“Quería a alguien de mi lado”, dijo Barrera, cuyo hijo tiene autismo, a través de un intérprete. “Durante todo este tiempo, no nos estaban facilitando las cosas. Eso provocó muchas lágrimas”. 

Independientemente del idioma que hablen los padres en casa, tienen el derecho civil de recibir información importante de los educadores de sus hijos en un idioma que entiendan. En el caso de los estudiantes con discapacidad, la ley federal es aún más clara: las escuelas “deben tomar todas las medidas necesarias”, incluidos los servicios de interpretación y traducción, para que los padres puedan participar de forma significativa en la educación de sus hijos.

Pero, a veces, las escuelas de todo el país no prestan esos servicios.

Las familias que no hablan inglés se ven obligadas a asistir a las reuniones sobre el progreso de sus hijos sin poder opinar ni preguntar a los educadores cómo pueden ayudar. Las diferencias culturales y lingüísticas pueden convencer a algunos padres de no cuestionar lo que ocurre en la escuela, un desequilibrio de poder que, según los defensores, hace que algunos niños se queden sin un apoyo fundamental. En caso de ser necesario, no es infrecuente que las escuelas encarguen a los estudiantes bilingües la interpretación para sus familias, poniéndolos en la posición de describir sus propios defectos a sus padres y tutores.

“Eso es totalmente inapropiado, en todos los sentidos posibles, y poco realista”, dice Diane Smith Howard, abogada principal de la Red Nacional de Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad. “Si al niño no le va especialmente bien en una asignatura académica, ¿por qué confiaría en que su hijo adolescente se lo contara?”.

Los distritos escolares culpan a la falta de recursos. Dicen que no tienen dinero para contratar a más intérpretes o a agencias de servicios lingüísticos y que, aunque lo tuvieran, no hay suficientes intérpretes calificados para hacer el trabajo.

En Washington y en algunos otros estados, la cuestión ha empezado a recibir más atención. Los legisladores estatales de Olympia presentaron este año una ley bipartidista para reforzar los derechos civiles federales en el código estatal. Los sindicatos de docentes de Seattle y Chicago negociaron recientemente, y consiguieron, servicios de interpretación durante las reuniones de educación especial. Y los distritos escolares se enfrentan a una creciente amenaza de demandas de los padres, o incluso a una investigación federal, si no se toman en serio el acceso lingüístico.

Aun así, los esfuerzos por ampliar el acceso lingüístico en la educación especial se enfrentan a una ardua batalla, debido al escaso número de intérpretes capacitados, la falta de cumplimiento a nivel estatal y el escaso financiamiento del Congreso (a pesar de que en 1974 prometió cubrir casi la mitad del costo adicional que supone para las escuelas proporcionar servicios de educación especial, el gobierno federal nunca lo ha hecho). El proyecto de ley bipartidista de Washington para ofrecer más protecciones a las familias fracasó repentinamente, después de que los legisladores estatales lo despojaran de disposiciones clave y los defensores retiraran su apoyo.

El sistema de educación especial puede ser “increíblemente difícil para todos”, dijo Ramona Hattendorf, directora de defensa de The Arc of King County, que promueve los derechos de las personas con discapacidad. “Luego todo se agrava cuando se introduce el idioma en la mezcla”. En todo el país, aproximadamente 1 de cada 10 estudiantes que califican para recibir servicios de educación especial también se identifican como estudiantes de inglés, según datos federales de educación, y esa proporción está creciendo. Cerca de 791,000 estudiantes de inglés participaron en educación especial en 2020, un aumento de casi el 30 % desde 2012. En más de una docena de estados, incluido Washington, el aumento fue aún mayor.

A medida que crece su número, también aumenta la frustración de sus padres con los servicios lingüísticos.

Durante el año escolar 2021-22, la defensora del pueblo en materia educación del estado de Washington recibió casi 1,200 quejas de los padres sobre las escuelas. Su principal preocupación, en todos los grupos raciales y demográficos, fue el acceso y la inclusión en la educación especial. La defensora del pueblo principal en materia de educación, Jinju Park, calcula que entre el 50 % y el 70 % de las llamadas que recibe la agencia son sobre educación especial, y que el 80 % de ellas son de clientes que necesitan servicios de interpretación.

Mientras que la mayoría de los estados conceden a las escuelas un máximo de 60 días desde que se remite a un estudiante a los servicios de educación especial para determinar si califica, las escuelas de Washington pueden tardar hasta medio año escolar. Y si un padre necesita servicios de interpretación o traducción, la espera puede durar aún más.

“Las leyes actuales no apoyan la participación plena de los padres”, escribió Park a los legisladores estatales en apoyo a la primera versión del proyecto de ley 1305 de la Cámara de Representantes, propuesta que finalmente fracasó. “Los padres para los que el inglés puede que no sea su lengua materna”, añadió, “a menudo, se ven abrumados por la información e incapaces de participar de forma significativa en el proceso”.

Barrera, cuyo hijo asistió al distrito escolar de Auburn, al sur de Seattle, dijo que, a menudo, se sentía excluida de su aprendizaje.

En el kínder, tras el diagnóstico de autismo de Ian, su equipo de educación especial llegó a la conclusión de que necesitaba un paraeducador asignado a tiempo completo, dijo Barrera. Recurrió a Google Translate y a otros padres para que la ayudaran a redactar correos electrónicos preguntando por qué no recibió ese apoyo hasta tercer grado. Sus solicitudes de copias traducidas de documentos legales quedaron en gran parte sin respuesta, mencionó, hasta que un director le dijo que la traducción era demasiado costosa.

Cuando Ian entró en la escuela secundaria, el acoso escolar y su seguridad se convirtieron en la principal preocupación de Barrera. Una vez llegó a casa sin un mechón de pelo, cuenta. A pesar de las repetidas llamadas y correos electrónicos a sus docentes, Barrera dijo que nunca recibió una explicación.

Además, cuando pidió ir a la escuela para observar, un docente le dijo: “Ni siquiera habla inglés. ¿Qué sentido tiene?”. Vicki Alonzo, portavoz del distrito de Auburn, afirma que el auge de la población inmigrante en la región en los últimos años ha llevado al distrito a destinar más recursos a ayudar a las familias cuya lengua materna no es el inglés. Casi un tercio de sus estudiantes son multilingües, dijo, y hablan alrededor de 85 idiomas diferentes en casa.

En el año 2019-20, el distrito gastó alrededor de $175,000 en servicios de interpretación y traducción, dijo; el año escolar pasado, esa cifra fue de más de $450,000.

Alonzo señaló que el distrito no recibió financiamiento adicional para esos servicios, que incluyeron alrededor de 1,500 reuniones con intérpretes y la traducción de más de 3,000 páginas de documentos.

El problema del acceso lingüístico es “un fenómeno nacional”, dijo Smith Howard, de la Red Nacional de Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad. “Es un problema de recursos y también una cuestión de respeto, dignidad y comprensión, que todos los padres deberían recibir”.

Los docentes también están frustrados.

El sindicato de docentes de Seattle protestó y retrasó el inicio de las clases el año pasado por unas demandas que incluían servicios de interpretación y traducción en educación especial. El contrato final, que dura hasta 2025, exige que los miembros del personal tengan acceso a diversos servicios que proporcionen traducción telefónica (un intérprete en directo) o de texto (en el caso de documentos escritos). El objetivo de esta disposición es garantizar que no se pida al personal bilingüe que traduzca si no forma parte de su trabajo.

Los docentes dicen que estas herramientas han sido útiles, pero solo en cierta medida: en ocasiones poco comunes hay intérpretes telefónicos disponibles para los idiomas menos comunes, como el amárico, y son frecuentes los problemas técnicos, como la interrupción de las llamadas.

La disponibilidad de intérpretes “no es tan constante como nos gustaría”, afirma Ibi Holiday, docente de educación especial de la escuela primaria Rising Star de Seattle.

También hay una cuestión de contexto. Es posible que los traductores no tengan experiencia en educación especial, por lo que las familias pueden salir de una reunión sin entender todas las opciones, lo cual puede ralentizar el proceso significativamente.

“Para muchas familias, la escuela de su país funciona de forma completamente diferente”, explica Mari Rico, directora del Centro de Desarrollo Infantil Jose Marti de El Centro de la Raza, un programa bilingüe de educación temprana. “Traducir no bastaba; tenía que enseñarles el sistema”.

Muchas escuelas del distrito de Seattle cuentan con personal multilingüe, pero el número y la diversidad de idiomas hablados no es constante, afirma Rico. Y existe un mayor riesgo de que el caso de un estudiante se pase por alto o se estanque debido a las barreras lingüísticas. Dijo que ha tenido que intervenir cuando las familias han pasado meses sin una reunión del programa de educación individualizada, incluso cuando su hijo estaba recibiendo servicios.

Hattendorf, de The Arc del condado de King, dijo que las soluciones tecnológicas más económicas, como las que utiliza Seattle, ofrecen cierta ayuda, pero su calidad varía mucho. Y los servicios pueden no ofrecer a los padres tiempo suficiente para procesar información complicada y hacer preguntas de seguimiento, explicó.

Al sur de Seattle, los Barrera decidieron cambiar a Ian de escuela secundaria.

Se graduó este año, pero la ley federal garantiza sus servicios de educación especial tres años más. Ian asiste ahora a un programa de transición para estudiantes con discapacidad, donde aprenderá habilidades para la vida, como conseguir un trabajo.

“Sabemos que, con ayuda, puede hacer lo que quiera”, dijo Barrera.

Ya, añadió, “todo es diferente. Los docentes intentan encontrar la mejor manera de comunicarse conmigo”.

Este artículo sobre los servicios de interpretación fue elaborado por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente y sin ánimo de lucro centrada en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación, en colaboración con The Seattle Times.

The post Los padres de estudiantes de educación especial que no hablan inglés se enfrentan a otro obstáculo appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

For parents applying to the dual-language program at Rochester, New York’s public school No. 12, where students learn in both English and Spanish, the process can be both bureaucratic and baffling. After listing the program as a top choice, parents must schedule a testing appointment at the central office, where an instructor gauges such skills as whether each incoming kindergartener can hold a book properly and turn its pages, identify that a sentence is made up of words and spaces, use words to describe the scene in a picture, identify sounds in a word, and other pre-reading skills.

Families never receive a “score” on the test, which is available in both English or Spanish, or any information about how it is used in the admissions process — just word on whether their child made it in. (The district communications office did not respond to multiple queries about the process.)

After her 5-year-old son took the test several years ago, Rochester parent Llerena Searle was convinced that the news wouldn’t be good. He had a meltdown when asked to go with an unfamiliar instructor, acquiescing only when allowed to “test” from his mother’s lap. The boy was admitted, though, and is now in seventh grade; Searle believes he received a wonderful education at school No. 12. “I just wish it were more accessible,” she said. 

In some communities across the country, dual-language programs — one of the best means of ensuring equity for underserved groups, especially English learners — have taken an elitist turn. And with the Biden administration eager to help districts expand such programs, questions about who they help — and who gets left out — are becoming more urgent. 

In too many places, admissions processes send a message that dual-language learning is not for everyone (when research shows that actually it is). In Mamaroneck, New York, for instance, the local dual-language school at one point published information asking families to consider whether their child’s native language is developing within “normal” limits when deciding whether to apply. (After this article published, school officials reached out to say that has not been their practice for some time, and the program is open to all interested families.) In Boston, the dual-language programs significantly under-enroll students with disabilities, partly out of a misconception that learning in two languages isn’t appropriate for many students with special education needs.*

Related: A Spanish-English high school proves learning in two languages can boost graduation rates

In other districts, the sin is one of omission rather than commission: failure to market the dual-language programs sufficiently to newcomer families; failure to locate the programs in communities where newcomers actually live; time-consuming admissions processes that can seem labyrinthine and opaque — even if they don’t involve testing recalcitrant preschoolers. 

Most experts recommend reserving at least half of seats in dual-language programs for English learners, who benefit most from programs partly in their native language, and dividing the remainder through random lottery after aggressive outreach to underrepresented communities, including Black families, low-income students and those with disabilities. Yet English learner enrollment shares are shrinking in most dual-language schools in large cities including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to a report released last spring by The Century Foundation and the Children’s Equity Project. 

Meanwhile, the share of white student enrollment was up in several other cities, most noticeably Washington D.C. “Many dual-language programs are at risk of tilting toward language enrichment for English-dominant children, instead of advancing linguistic equity and expanding educational opportunity for ELs,” the report’s authors wrote. Overall, the number of dual-language schools in the country has nearly quadrupled since 2010, and currently numbers more than 3,600. 

“[P]rograms that were ostensibly created to help English learners have turned into an extracurricular for native English speakers.”

Alina Adams, parent

There’s no one solution to this troubling shift — dual-language programs are gentrifying in many cities partly because the cities themselves are gentrifying. In some communities, English learner enrollments are depressed because of the lingering effects of hypocritical policies in the U.S. banning bilingual education for non-English speaking newcomers. Many immigrant families absorbed the “English only” message, and remained hesitant to try dual language even after the policies changed.

But school districts need to be far more vigilant in designing admissions processes and programs that favor the least privileged rather than the most. Otherwise, one of the most proven ways to combat the achievement gap, particularly for English learners, is at risk of playing a perversely opposite role: expanding educational opportunity for the elite.

Dual-language programs have never been monolithic in their demographics or their goals. When they began to appear in significant numbers in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, some opened with the intent of serving English learners and working-class Latino families. Others hoped to enroll a significant number of white, English-speaking families, and even deter white flight from urban areas. Some wanted to meet both goals. One-way language schools enroll predominantly students from a single language group, while most two-way programs try to enroll a roughly equivalent number of students from English-speaking households and the target language.

Widespread gentrification in the 1990s and early 2000s also brought many white and well-off families back to some urban neighborhoods where dual-language schools were taking root. That coincided with a growing recognition by privileged families of the economic and career benefits of bilingualism, and a particular interest in affluent communities in studying Spanish and Mandarin. Research shows that learning multiple languages early in life has cognitive benefits extending beyond language acquisition and helps children develop stronger social skills, including empathizing better with others. In sum, bilingualism is good for both the brain and the heart.

In New York City, meanwhile, some middle-class and affluent families have come to see dual-language programs as an alternative to gifted and talented education, particularly as the latter has become harder to access, said Alina Adams, a parent and creator of the website NYCSchoolSecrets.com. Over the last decade, “gifted and talented became more competitive every year and suddenly there were many more dual-language programs,” she said. Ambitious parents perceived it as a more rigorous, challenging curriculum. And at some locations, “programs that were ostensibly created to help English learners have turned into an extracurricular for native English speakers,” Adams added.

Related: Students with disabilities often left out of popular ‘dual-language’ programs

Yet recent decades have also brought a growing research base showing that it’s precisely the students least likely to seek out gifted and talented programming who can benefit most from well-designed, supportive dual language programs. “Dual language is the one program we’ve found that truly closes the [achievement] gap” between English learners and the rest of the student population, said Virginia Collier, an emeritus professor of education at George Mason University.  Her research, done over the course of four decades in collaboration with her husband and GMU colleague Wayne Thomas, also shows that dual-language learning can be particularly effective for Black students, low-income students, and those with special needs — three groups that are often underrepresented in the programs. 

There’s a misconception among some educators and parents that bilingual education is inappropriate for students with developmental delays, or those predisposed to fall behind in an English-only curriculum. Yet a 2021 study found that dual-language “education can benefit … even students who often struggle in school because of special education needs.” And a 2018 paper found “no credible evidence that bilingual education adds or creates burden for children. Yet it is “incontrovertible,” according to the paper, that bilingual learning comes with decided advantages.

Spanish dual-language programs, the most common kind in the U.S., can be especially beneficial for students who struggle with reading. That’s because the Spanish language is more phonetic than the English one, with much less variation in the sounds that letters make. But some programs send the message — whether intentional or accidental — that dual language schools aren’t appropriate for children without strong early literacy skills.

“You might hear a parent say, ‘My kid didn’t start talking until age three and a half. They are already struggling — it would be too confusing to be in a dual language program,’” said Emily Bivins, former principal of a dual-language school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina whose company provides professional development for dual-language programs. “We all know the research is counter to that. These are the students who absolutely need to be in our bilingual programs.”

Bivins’ own three children attended dual-language programs, and she said it was most helpful for the child with an attention deficit diagnosis and early reading struggles. “Learning to read in Spanish was much better for her … the rules were clearer,” Bivins said. That’s part of the reason it’s so frustrating when she hears from colleagues at dual-language schools that use reading screeners where, if students “don’t score high enough [they] don’t get in.”  

Widespread interest in dual-language schools, including among the affluent, is a good thing, say proponents of bilingual education. But it becomes problematic if students from underserved groups are neglected or squeezed out of programs. Many communities lack sufficient bilingual educators to meet the desire for dual language. “It’s an iron law of education policymaking: nothing exacerbates educational unfairness like scarcity,” wrote the authors of the report released last spring.

The history of the Amigos School, a dual-language program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shows that even seemingly minor changes to admissions processes can significantly shape how a school is perceived — and who applies — tilting preference toward privilege.

Thirty-five years ago, scores of first- and second-generation immigrant families from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, along with others, came to see Amigos as the place to send their kids. The school was located near subsidized public housing, where many of the families lived. And the school’s founder, Mary Cazabon, engaged in constant grassroots outreach, attending community events and churches, like Cambridge’s bilingual Saint Mary’s church, where she spread word about the school and the benefits of learning in two languages. “We wanted to make sure that we were going to address the needs of the students who were most vulnerable,” Cazabon says. “The priority was on them.” To that end, Spanish-speaking students designated as English learners were given priority in admissions, Cazabon says.

Then the biotech boom hit Cambridge in the 1990s, and a growing number of white and wealthier families began to take an interest in Amigos, drawn by the allure of raising bilingual children. At some point in the 2000s, the school district also made a pivotal switch: Instead of giving priority to English learners, as Cazabon had done, they introduced a system that awarded “Spanish points” to children who could show some knowledge of Spanish when applying to the school’s pre-K or kindergarten. 

Related: Once criticized, ‘Spanglish’ finds a place in the classroom 

The change opened the door to a much broader group of families gaining admissions preference: Families with some Hispanic heritage whose toddlers were exposed to both English and Spanish in the home, but also families with no Hispanic heritage who sent their children to a Spanish-language child care or hired Spanish-speaking nannies with the goal of getting a spot at Amigos. By 2010, the demographics of Amigos had shifted dramatically, and it enrolled fewer low-income students than almost all the schools in the district. Penn Loh, a lecturer at Tufts University, said that in his son’s class at that time, only two of 44 children qualified for free and reduced lunch.

In 2011, one mother filed a complaint with the Cambridge Human Rights Commission, alleging that Amigos no longer served the Hispanic community. And Loh and other parents at Amigos petitioned the school board to change the admissions process, worried that Amigos increasingly catered too much to the children of Cambridge’s elite. “The pool of Spanish-proficient applicants became more unbalanced, with more wealthy, privileged families having children qualify in this pool,” Loh said in a recent email.. “We heard that working class Latinx families, often in Cambridge for generations, were not … getting into the school.”

The school district changed the policy to give “points” to children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

The number of dual-language public schools in the U.S. has quadrupled since 2010, to more than 3,600. 

“We are on our way to being much more balanced,” said Sarah Bartels-Marrero, the school’s current principal. “To me, it’s very important that we have a very diverse group of Spanish-speaking students. That’s a core pillar of our school.” The Spanish points system helps ensure that, she added, although she acknowledged that some English-only parents have also employed it as a workaround. “Certain individuals with privilege and knowledge may look for a loophole,” she said. “That is a thing, but we work really hard to combat and mitigate that.” 

Amigos continues to enroll slightly fewer English learners and about 10 percent fewer low-income students than the district average. Although the current formula would virtually guarantee a low-income Spanish speaking student admission, only one such incoming kindergartener listed Amigos as their first choice in January 2022, according to data published by the district.  However, Bartels-Marrero pointed out that about 60 percent of families identify as Hispanic or Latino, a group that is incredibly diverse. “To me it’s fundamentally important that [Amigos] is an option and opportunity for every kid in Cambridge regardless of race or background,” she said. 

Some states and communities also suffer from a location problem when it comes to dual language. The predominantly white town of Maynard, Massachusetts created a Spanish dual-language school with its English speakers in mind — not its growing population of Portuguese-speaking students, for instance. But the thousands of Spanish-speaking English learner students in the much larger and heavily Hispanic city of Lawrence, located just 35 miles to the north, have for two decades lacked access to even a single dual-language Spanish program (two are slated to open in the next year or so). States and the federal government could, and should, incentivize districts to open programs where there is the most need, and discourage programs targeted mostly at English speakers.

But starting new programs takes time, and there are steps that school districts can take right now to help ensure that English learners, low-income students, Black students, and other underrepresented groups have equal, if not greater access, to dual-language programs. They should engage more in grassroots outreach and marketing of dual learning, tailoring the message as needed to different communities. They should make the admissions process as transparent and accessible as possible, avoiding complicated or burdensome steps that advantage those with flexible schedules and knowledge of school system bureaucracy.

And they should eschew any kind of elitist framing, intentional or not. 

Llerena Searle, the Rochester mother, liked the dual-language program at School No. 12 well enough to enroll her younger child there, too. This time, there was a pandemic going on and the child was tested over Zoom. Her daughter dutifully cooperated with the process. With little doubt of a successful outcome (the school also has an admissions preference for siblings) Searle was more relaxed this time, yet hardly sanguine about the admissions process. She never figured out exactly what district officials were trying to accomplish, but in the end worried that the test mostly measured privilege. 

*Clarification: This article was updated to reflect the fact that the dual language program in Mamaroneck, New York, is now open to all interested families, including those with disabilities.

This story about dual language programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter

The post How to keep dual-language programs from being gentrified by English speaking families appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

As our country continues to struggle with historic teacher shortages, we ought to consider an untapped pool of aspiring teachers: Young immigrants who want to become educators.

They can connect with other newcomers by sharing their stories and serving as role models, like the ones I had when I arrived in Queens from Ecuador at the age of 14.

The bustling pace of rush-hour commuters, the tangled mix of languages and the loud rhythm of a sleepless city disoriented me for months.

Thanks to Mr. Bello, my supportive math teacher at Newcomers High School in Queens, I was able to quiet the cacophony with the anonymity of numbers.

Mr. Bello taught me much more than trigonometry and geometry. He taught me about probability, and helped me see that I could succeed as an undocumented student despite the uncertainty of my status.

Mr. Bello, himself an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, helped me build confidence in my potential, which allowed me to face a higher education and workforce system that systemically shuts doors to undocumented immigrants.

Another teacher, Mr. Palau, an immigrant from Paraguay, patiently guided me through my college application process. He made sure I understood that I was eligible for the in-state tuition rate despite my undocumented status.

Eventually, I qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. That allowed me to get a work permit and pursue a career in the immigration research field.

Today, I am the project director at the Initiative on Immigration and Education at the City University of New York (also known as CUNY-IIE), which produces research and resources that center the strengths of immigrant communities.

In this role, I see firsthand the importance and urgent need in our schools for more teachers like Mr. Bello and Mr. Palau.

Related: Teacher shortages are real, but not for the reason you heard

Congress’s inability to pass any kind of immigration reform that would help undocumented immigrants become teachers makes easing the path of immigrants into educator roles a tough ask, especially as the 11-year-old DACA program is in peril of being eliminated for good by judicial decree.

Currently, immigrant educators may be granted work permits only if they qualify for DACA or Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which has been extended to people from 16 countries. State and local lawmakers and policymakers can and should be creative in expanding options.

The situation is urgent. According to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the state needs to hire 180,000 new teachers over the next decade to keep up with the demands of the workforce. Enrollment in New York State’s teacher education programs has declined by 53 percent since 2009.

Congress’s inability to pass any kind of immigration reform that would help undocumented immigrants become teachers makes easing the path of immigrants into educator roles a tough ask.

Most disconcerting for our newest students: There is a significant shortage of bilingual teachers. In 2022-23, approximately 134,000 students who were enrolled in New York City’s public schools identified as English Language Learners, yet the United Federation of Teachers reported that the school system had fewer than 3,000 certified bilingual educators.

This shortage intersects with a political and social upheaval in the city. Since April 2022, New York has received more than 116,000 asylum seekers, including approximately 20,000 children who have now entered the public school system.

The majority of these students are from Latin America and the Caribbean and speak languages other than English.

Bilingual education is considered the best approach for immigrant students, according to Tatyana Kleyn, professor of Bilingual Education & TESOL at The City College of New York. Kleyn favors bilingual education because it allows students to continue learning in their home language while they also learn English.

For all New York teachers, an initial certification is valid for just five years. From there, they are expected to get a professional teaching certificate. For a while, DACA beneficiaries were not eligible for professional certification.

In 2016, the New York State Education Department began to allow undocumented students who are DACA beneficiaries to get professional teaching certificates.

Last year, the state expanded that guidance, allowing undocumented students without a social security number (and who are not DACA holders) to do fieldwork in certain schools and obtain initial certification.

These are two steps in the right direction.

Related: OPINION: In an era of teacher shortages, we must embrace and develop new ways to unleash educator talent

However, undocumented educators who are not DACA holders can’t make use of their education degree and initial certification because they do not have access to work permits.

In addition, some undocumented immigrants just missed the cutoff for DACA or have not been allowed to apply due to the litigation battles about the program.

Our working group, UndocuEdu, produced a report in 2021 titled “The State of Undocumented Educators in New York” that outlines the challenges undocumented educators face navigating teacher education programs.

One suggestion in the report is to eliminate testing fees for NYS certification exams for those in financial need.

Another recommendation is for policymakers to create municipal or state exceptions so that our city’s schools can hire educators who have training and certification but lack a work permit.

State legislators and advocates in New York are already discussing the creation of municipal work permits for recently arrived asylum-seekers.

We urge the city and state to embrace these types of solutions and find others to address the current educational need. It’s time to give more opportunities to a group of trained educators who are already in our communities.

Now more than ever, we need to expand our teaching pool for students who urgently need help. Undocumented teachers can become the Mr. Bellos and Mr. Palaus that every immigrant student deserves.

Daniela Alulema is project director of the CUNY-Initiative on Immigration and Education in New York City.

This story about immigrant teachers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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SEATTLE — Mireya Barrera didn’t want a fight.

For years, she sat through meetings with her son’s special education teachers, struggling to maintain a smile as she understood little of what they said. On the rare occasions when other teachers who spoke Barrera’s language, Spanish, were asked to help, the conversations still faltered because they weren’t trained interpreters.

But by the time her son, Ian, entered high school, Barrera decided to invite a bilingual volunteer from a local nonprofit to sit with her and to remind the school team of her rights.

“I wanted someone on my side,” Barrera, whose son has autism, said through an interpreter. “All this time, they weren’t making things easy for us. It’s caused a lot of tears.”

Regardless of what language parents speak at home, they have a civil right to receive important information from their child’s educators in a language they understand. For students with disabilities, federal law is even more clear: Schools “must take whatever action is necessary” — including arranging for interpretation and translation — so parents can meaningfully participate in their kid’s education. 

But schools throughout the country sometimes fail to provide those services.

Families who don’t speak English are forced to muddle through meetings about their children’s progress, unable to weigh in or ask educators how they can help. Cultural and linguistic differences can convince some parents not to question what’s happening at school — a power imbalance that, advocates say, means some children miss out on critical support. In a pinch, it’s not uncommon for schools to task bilingual students with providing interpretation for their families, placing them in the position of describing their own shortcomings to their parents and guardians.

“That’s totally inappropriate, in every possible way — and unrealistic,” said Diane Smith-Howard, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network. “If the child is not doing particularly well in an academic subject, why would you trust your teenager to tell you?”

“Parents for whom English might not be their primary language are often overwhelmed with information and unable to participate meaningfully in the process.”

Jinju Park, senior education ombuds, Washington State 

School districts blame a lack of resources. They say they don’t have the money to hire more interpreters or contract with language service agencies, and that even if they did, there aren’t enough qualified interpreters to do the job.

In Washington and a handful of other states, the issue has started to gain more attention. State lawmakers in Olympia earlier this year introduced bipartisan legislation to bolster federal civil rights in state code. Teachers unions in Seattle and Chicago recently bargained for — and won — interpretation services during special education meetings. And school districts face an escalating threat of parent lawsuits, or even federal investigation, if they don’t take language access seriously.

Still, efforts to expand language access in special education face an uphill battle, due to the small pool of trained interpreters, lack of enforcement at the state level and scant funding from Congress. (Despite promising in 1974 to cover nearly half the extra cost for schools to provide special education, the federal government has never done so.) Washington’s bipartisan bill to add more protections for families suddenly failed, after state lawmakers stripped it of key provisions and advocates pulled their support.

The special education system can be “incredibly difficult for everybody,” said Ramona Hattendorf, director of advocacy for the Arc of King County, which promotes disability rights. “Then everything is exacerbated when you bring language into the mix.”

Related: Special education’s hidden racial gap

Nationwide, roughly 1 in 10 students who qualify for special education also identify as English learners, according to federal education data, and that share is growing. About 791,000 English learners participated in special education in 2020, a jump of nearly 30 percent since 2012. In more than a dozen states, including Washington, the increase was even higher.

As their numbers grow, their parents’ frustration with language services is rising too.

During the 2021-22 school year, the Washington State education ombudsman received nearly 1,200 complaints from parents about schools. Their number one concern, across all racial and demographic groups, was access and inclusion in special education. Senior education ombuds Jinju Park estimates that between 50 and 70 percent of calls the agency receives are about special education — and 80 percent of those calls are from clients who need interpretation services.

While most states allow schools up to 60 days once a student is referred for special education services to determine if they qualify, Washington schools can take up to half a school year. And if a parent needs interpretation or translation, the wait can last even longer.

“Our current laws do not support full parent participation,” Park wrote to Washington state lawmakers in support of an early version of House Bill 1305, the proposal that ultimately failed. “Parents for whom English might not be their primary language,” she added, “are often overwhelmed with information and unable to participate meaningfully in the process.”

Barrera, whose son attended the Auburn School District, south of Seattle, said she often felt cut out of his learning.

In kindergarten, after his diagnosis for autism, Ian’s special education team concluded he needed a paraeducator assigned to him full time, Barrera said. She relied on Google Translate and other parents to help her compose emails asking why he didn’t receive that support until the third grade. Her requests for translated copies of legal documents largely went unanswered, she said — until a principal told her that the translation was too expensive.

When Ian entered high school, bullying and his safety became Barrera’s top concern. He once came home with a chunk of hair missing, she said. Despite repeated calls and emails to his teachers, Barrera said she never received an explanation.

Barrera said that when she asked to come to the school to observe, a teacher told her, “You don’t even speak English. What’s the point?’ ”

“That’s totally inappropriate, in every possible way – and unrealistic. If the child is not doing particularly well in an academic subject, why would you trust your teenager to tell you?”

Diane Smith-Howard, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network

Vicki Alonzo, a spokesperson for the Auburn district, said that the region’s booming immigrant population in recent years has prompted the district to commit more resources toward helping families whose first language isn’t English. Nearly a third of its students are multilingual learners, she said, and they speak about 85 different languages at home. 

In the 2019-20 year, the district spent about $175,000 on interpretation and translation services, she said; last school year, that figure was more than $450,000.

Alonzo noted the district received no additional funding for those services, which included about 1,500 meetings with interpreters and translation of more than 3,000 pages of documents.

“Families are our partners,” she said. “We need them to have student success.”

Related: Students with disabilities often left out of popular ‘dual language’ programs

Lawmakers in other states have tried to address language access issues.

Proposed legislation in California would set a 30-day deadline for schools to comply with parents’ requests for a translated copy of their child’s individualized education program, or IEP, which details the services a school will provide for a student with disabilities. Similarly, lawmakers in Texas introduced a bill earlier this year to expand translation of IEPs if English is not the native language of the child’s parent (the bill died in committee).

“It’s a nationwide phenomenon,” said Smith-Howard of the National Disability Rights Network. “It’s a resource problem and also a matter of respect and dignity and understanding — that all parents should receive.”

In New York City, parents turned to the courts in pursuit of a solution.

Four families there filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2019, claiming the nation’s largest school district failed to provide translation services for families that don’t speak English. Like Barrera, one of the New York City parents asked for a Spanish interpreter at an IEP meeting; their school provided one who spoke Italian, according to M’Ral Broodie-Stewart, an attorney representing the families for Staten Island Legal Services.

In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into New Bedford Public Schools in Massachusetts after students and families who speak K’iché, an Indigenous Mayan language, complained about discriminatory practices. 

A settlement reached last year commits the Massachusetts district to using professionally trained interpreters — and not students, relatives or Google Translate — to communicate essential information to parents.

Related: Is the pandemic our chance to reimagine special education?

Teachers are frustrated too.

In Washington state’s largest school district, the Seattle teachers union picketed and delayed the start of school last year over demands that included interpretation and translation in special education. The eventual contract, which lasts through 2025, requires that staff have access to various services that provide telephonic (a live interpreter) or text-based translation (for written documents). The provision was to ensure that bilingual staff weren’t being asked to translate if it wasn’t a part of their job description.

Teachers say these tools have been helpful, but only to a degree: There are rarely telephone interpreters available for less common languages, such as Amharic, and technical issues like dropped calls are common. 

The availability of interpreters is “not as consistent as we would like it to be,” said Ibi Holiday, a special-education teacher at Rising Star Elementary School in Seattle.

There’s also an issue of context. Translators may not have a background in special education, so families may come away from a meeting not understanding all the options. This can slow down the process significantly. 

“For a lot of the families, they attended a school in their country that functions completely differently,” said Mari Rico, director of El Centro de la Raza’s Jose Marti Child Development Center, a bilingual early education program. “Translating wasn’t enough; I had to teach them about the system.”  

Many Seattle district schools have multilingual staff, but the number and diversity of languages spoken isn’t consistent, Rico said. And there is a greater risk of a student’s case getting overlooked or stagnating because of language barriers. She said she’s had to step in where families have gone months without an IEP meeting even as their child was receiving services.

Hattendorf, with the Arc of King County, said that cheaper tech solutions like those Seattle is using do offer some assistance, but their quality varies widely. And the services may not offer parents enough time to process complicated information and ask follow-up questions, she said.

South of Seattle, the Barreras decided to move Ian to a different high school.

He graduated earlier this year, but federal law guarantees his special education services for another three years. Ian is now attending a transition program for students with disabilities, where he will learn life skills like getting a job.

“We know, with help, he can do whatever he wants,” Barrera said. 

Already, she added, “it’s all different. The teachers just try to find the best way to communicate with me.”

This story about interpretation services was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, in partnership with The Seattle Times.

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House Republicans recently returned to one of their favorite targets for spending cuts: the country’s most vulnerable youth and the schools that serve them. Their plan would represent a major setback to efforts to achieve racial equity in our nation’s public schools.

During the latest battle over preventing a government shutdown, Republicans called for cutting Title 1 education grants earmarked for low-income students by 80 percent, which would mean a loss of nearly $15 billion in funding for schools with sizeable populations of these students, disproportionately affecting schools that serve more children of color.

We already see this racial logic playing out in the efforts of red states to use school funding as a political football. In Tennessee, the house speaker and lieutenant governor have teamed up to explore rejecting federal education funds altogether. They hope to shirk federal oversight on matters related to inequality, including civil rights protections based on race.

Given the patterns in funding schemes across the country, it is clear that we need to set aside targeted school funding on both the state and local levels with the express purpose of remedying injustices inflicted upon particular groups of students.

Yet the reality is that government funding decisions about education have long been a way to install and preserve racial inequality in our society. And since these inequalities have origins in funding malpractice, to remedy them, the government must use targeted funding for racial equity going forward.

Related: ‘Kids who have less, need more’: The fight over school funding

School funding stems from three major sources: federal, state and local. Looking at average breakdowns from recent data, we see that U.S. schools receive about 47 percent of their funds from their state government, 45 percent from local and 8 percent from federal.

This means that states and districts can counteract any proposed federal cuts with concerted efforts to reinvest in vulnerable youth. But even states with Democratic leadership have struggled to do so.

For example, in Pennsylvania, where I call home, the state’s funding scheme has been found unconstitutional for providing inadequate and unequal funding. Recent investigations have revealed how damaging the effects of this system have been on districts where a majority of students are students of color; one study, from the advocacy group The Education Trust, found that “districts with the most students of color on average receive substantially less (16 percent) state and local revenue than districts with the fewest students of color, equating to approximately $13.5 million for a 5,000-student district.”

Related: OPINION: Pennsylvania’s school funding is a case study in the future of inequality

The state of California, and its largest city, Los Angeles, however, have initiated thoughtful and large-scale efforts to right the wrongs of governments past. California’s funding formula and Los Angeles’ program to holistically support Black students are both concrete efforts to tinker with school funding to move towardequity, rather than away from it. In a nutshell, these programs exemplify meaningful, targeted investments in marginalized populations and represent a significant course reversal from much of United States history.

Though these two programs in California have flaws, which I detail below, there are real lessons that leaders across the country can glean from them in order to make real, lasting change in their own locales.

I spent the previous five years in California training teachers and studying school improvement. This year, we are arriving at the 10th anniversary of the state’s Local Control Funding Formula, which changed how schools were funded and allows for greater flexibility in how local education agencies meet the needs of three targeted student populations: low-income, foster youth and English learners.

These programs exemplify meaningful, targeted investments in marginalized populations and represent a significant course reversal from much of United States history.

Results so far include a demonstrable gain in test scores for these “high-need” students, including a 13 percentage point increase in the number of students meeting or exceeding standards on state tests in districts where 95 percent of students are high-need.

These numbers could have been even higher, however, had there been greater compliance at the district level. The same report noted that roughly 60 percent of districts reported spending “less money on high-need students than they were allocated for these students. Nearly 20 percent spent about half or less.”

Further, advocates argue that California’s funding formula does not do enough to target the needs of Black students in the state, who continue to face an accumulation of disadvantages both in and out of school. This was one impetus for even more targeted funding in California’s largest district: Los Angeles Unified.

In February 2021, Los Angeles approved a reform initiative known as the Black Student Achievement Plan. This plan set out to address rampant racial disparities in the district, pulling together $36.5 million in funds from the school police department budget and the district’s general fund.

The money went toward many important endeavors, including reforms of school discipline and curriculums and hiring support staff such as counselors, school climate coaches and nurses.

Additional resources were provided according to need, with schools serving the highest number of Black students also receiving psychiatric social workers, attendance counselors and funding for restorative justice programs.

Early data found some notable gains, including increases in graduation rates, completion of courses required for admission to California State universities, enrollment in Advanced Placement courses and attendance. These successes, while modest, provide evidence that targeted funding for Black students can improve how schools serve them.

But the problems with LA’s program are also instructive. An April report found that, similar to the deployment of the state funding formula, nearly 40 percent of the allocated funds were not used after the first year of the program, while the rollout and follow-through varied greatly across school campuses.

Those findings were later corroborated by an ongoing evaluation study, which noted that several LA schools dealt with unfilled positions related to the Black Student Achievement Plan while others tended to overwhelm program staff with responsibilities beyond their job descriptions.

These struggles show how, to fulfill their promise, programs like California’s targeted funding formula and Los Angeles’ plan for Black students must: (1) hire appropriate numbers of staff with clear job responsibilities, (2) communicate actively with communities about the purpose of the funds, (3) check-in regularly with schools to keep track of the funds they have left to spend and (4) consistently support the educators making use of the funds.

While there will certainly be differences in state policies, school district size and budgets, more states and districts should heed the lessons, both good and bad, from California.

Given how much pressure we collectively put on schools to improve society, setting aside specific funds for programs to support the most systematically disadvantaged students constitutes an educational imperative. These important California models can pave a path forward with more explicit commitments to racial justice.

 Julio Ángel Alicea is an assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers University-Camden. A former public school teacher, his research interests include race, urban education and organizational change.

This story about equitable school funding was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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BANKE, NEPAL — English and health studies are 14-year-old Dilip Godiya’s favorite subjects. Unlike other subjects taught at his school in the city of Nepalgunj, they don’t require him to be effortlessly fluent in Nepali. Dilip grew up speaking Awadhi at home, the mother tongue of half a million Nepalis and millions more in northern India, so adjusting to Nepali as a language of learning was a major challenge. Until fourth grade, he found it difficult to read and hesitated from speaking up in class.

“Sometimes, I still struggle with speaking proper Nepali,” he says, an eighth grader now.

As many as 123 languages are spoken in Nepal, a linguistic diversity evident in the multicultural Banke district, where 3 out of every 5 residents are non-Nepali speakers. Despite a provision in the 2015 constitution mandating that all children have the right to education in their first language — as well as a national curriculum plan introduced in 2019 that mandates localized curricula and recommends multilingual instruction to facilitate learning for non-Nepali speakers — all eight municipalities in Banke district have yet to do so. 

“Repeating a grade or leaving school altogether may not be the direct result of the language barrier, but it is a side effect.”

Bikram Mani Tripathi, education expert

Consequently, many non-Nepali speakers send their children to schools across the border in neighboring India. Bhupendra Singh Sodi, who runs a dental clinic in Nepalgunj, is one of them. The Sodis migrated from the Indian region of Punjab five generations ago for business and, over time, Awadhi and Hindi — dominant in Banke — replaced Punjabi as their first languages. Despite the presence of a nearby government school, Sodi’s son and two daughters study at the Assembly of God Church in the Indian border town of Rupaidiha, where Sodi himself once studied. Hindi, the medium of instruction there, is easier for Awadhi speakers to comprehend than the Nepali used at the local school.

Sodi went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sociology at an Indian college. “I know all the Indian political history,” he says. “I know the Indian national anthem by heart; I know it was written by Rabindranath Tagore. But I don’t know who wrote the Nepali national anthem.” It saddens him to know so little about his own country — and he worries his children will experience this sense of alienation too. He wants his daughter to become a dentist and told her she could study in Kathmandu, where dental education is cheaper. “But she said she can’t succeed there due to the language barrier and expressed interest in pursuing dentistry in India.”

Related: Once criticized, ‘Spanglish’ finds a place in the classroom

Non-Nepali speakers consistently underperform at school. In the last five years, according to government data, rates of class repetition among elementary school students in Banke were higher in areas such as Nepalgunj, Narainapur, Duduwa and Janaki, where the proportion of non-Nepali speakers is higher. An analysis of the last three years of Banke district’s final secondary education exam results—conducted at the end of 10th grade—found that only 30 percent of students who scored a GPA higher than 3.0 were non-Nepali speakers. If learning outcomes were equal, that number would be closer to 60 percent, the percentage of Banke residents who are non-native speakers, according to the 2011 census. (2021 census language data was unavailable.)

Nepali-language instruction isn’t the only reason for these results, says Bhagwan Prasad Paudel, chief of the education development and coordination unit in Banke, a government entity. “Students are present during admissions season but have low attendance throughout the year, due to farmwork and festivities,” he says. “This rate is higher among members of the Madhesi community [who tend to be non-native Nepali speakers] than among people from hill communities.” In one school in Nepalgunj, for instance, 53 students are enrolled in the third grade but only 20 or so attend regularly.

But Bikram Mani Tripathi, an education expert and himself a non-native Nepali speaker — Awadhi is his mother tongue — says the language barrier manifests itself in more than one way. “In the past, each caste had an occupation: some worked with wood, some with iron, and others with leather or soil,” he says. “As these traditional occupations started dying, the burden of sustenance fell on farming activities, especially for communities who could not speak Nepali or English and could therefore not compete for government jobs. As their income dried up, parents started making their children work from a young age. Repeating a grade or leaving school altogether may not be the direct result of the language barrier, but it is a side effect.”

Satish Maharjan, a teacher at Shree Secondary School in Lagdahawa, says a poor grasp of Nepali sets students back. “In an eighth-grade science exam, if a student uses the Awadhi word for bullcart rather than the Nepali word, a teacher from a different community would deduct points,” he says. “This is why non-Nepali speakers don’t get good results.” Students tend to struggle with Nepali grammar and accent marks, and they have difficulty reading lessons out loud, says Kriparam Barma, assistant principal at Mangal Prasad Secondary School, adding that “as Nepali, Hindi and Awadhi share a written script, students tend to write cognate words the way they are written in their mother tongues, which is considered incorrect in Nepali.”

Related: A Spanish-English high school proves learning in two languages can boost graduation rates

Teachers who speak the same language as their students could improve learning outcomes, but multilingual instructors are hard to find. In the school where Maharjan teaches, for instance, 5 out of 17 teachers are non-Nepali speakers compared to 70 percent of students. Municipal authorities, who decide what is taught in schools in their jurisdictions, cite this as a primary obstacle in implementing local curricula in languages other than Nepali.

There also is the challenge of having multiple languages spoken in a community. In Banke district, four of eight municipalities — Kohalpur, Rapti Sonari village, Khajura and Nepalgunj submetropolitan — developed their mandated local curricula this year. But neither they nor the other four municipalities have produced textbooks in languages other than Nepali, in part because of the linguistic diversity of local students who speak Awadhi, Urdu and Tharu, among other languages.

In Banke, Nepal non-Nepali speakers make up close to 60 percent of the population, but only 30 percent of students who scored a GPA higher than 3.0 at the end of 10th grade.

“Starting this year, we have implemented the local curriculum,” says Jeevan Neupane, head of the education branch in Rapti Sonari village, “but not in mother tongue.” Some municipalities are preparing to develop curricula in Awadhi, spoken by nearly 24 percent of Banke residents. The curriculum for grades one through 10 has been developed, says Tripathi, who has worked with the government on this project.

Fourteen-year-old Dilip may have graduated by the time Awadhi-language instruction is implemented in Banke, but it would be a boon to many who come after him. Even a teacher who would take the time to explain that “aama” is the Nepali word for “maa” in Awadhi — “mother” in English — would be a rare relief for children trying to follow an unfamiliar tongue. “Some teachers spoke very fast in Nepali,” he says. “I was often very nervous. When an Awadhi-speaking teacher stood in front of the classroom, it was easier to speak and ask questions.”

Global Press Journal is an award-winning international non-profit news publication that employs local women reporters in more than 40 independent news bureaus across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

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BOSTON — After María Mejía’s son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in preschool, the question of where he should go to kindergarten focused entirely on his special education needs.

Mejía and her husband, Spanish-speaking immigrants from the Dominican Republic, only later learned that Joangel, now 7, would have been an ideal candidate for one of the four elementary schools in Boston that teach students in both English and Spanish, Joangel’s first language. Experts say such programs offer English learners the best chance at academic success. BPS has pledged to start dozens more.

But kids like Joangel, who have individualized education plans, are often left out,their families unwittingly forced to place them into English-only special education programs to help meet their learning needs. Mejía said she was shocked when she learned there was an alternative.

“They didn’t tell me there was a bilingual school,” Mejía said in Spanish, “only a school that would take a child with an IEP.”

District enrollment data obtained by The Hechinger Report through a public records request shows students with disabilities — who make up 22 percent of the student population —are starkly underrepresented in the district’s seven dual-language programs. They make up between 8 and 14 percent of the enrollment in each of the district’s five Spanish-English programs. None are enrolled in the two-year-old Vietnamese-English program at Mather Elementary School. And in the district’s Haitian Creole-English program, so few students with disabilities are enrolled, the district can’t reveal the total without risking student privacy.

Related: Rising popularity of dual-language education could leave Latinos behind

Experts and advocates say the disparities stem partly from a staffing issue — there are simply not enough bilingual special education teachers — but are also the result of overt discrimination and cultural misconceptions about whether students with disabilities can handle bilingual education. The district has pledged to add 25 more bilingual programs in the next two years. But both advocates and state officials question whether BPS can move that quickly, and early signs suggest the district may struggle to include students with disabilities as it opens new programs: The bilingual program at Mather Elementary, now in its second year, will only be ready to serve students with disabilities in its fourth year, according to the principal.

BPS plays a large role in determining placement for English Learners, who make up nearly a third of the district, as well as students with disabilities. Families in Boston get to select their preferred schools, but if students need English language or special education services, their registrations are routed through the Newcomers Assessment and Counseling Center or the Special Education department. Language testers make school recommendations based on students’ English proficiency, and special education department staff identify specific schools for kids with IEPs.

BPS spokesman Max Baker said in a statement the district is “devoted to becoming a fully inclusive district, providing full access to a continuum of services to all students,” but declined to answer questions about the reasons students with disabilities might be underrepresented in the dual-language programs, or state what specific steps the district intends to take to remedy the lack of representation.

Bilingual special education experts say the underrepresentation of students with disabilities is more than a missed opportunity — it’s discrimination. They say there’s no reason schools can’t serve students with disabilities. And equal opportunity law suggests they have to.

“Kids with disabilities need dual-language education more than anyone else.”

Maria Serpa, BPS English Language Learner Task Force member

Maria Serpa, a pioneer in the field and a member of the district’s English Language Learner Task Force, said the enrollment data is shocking. “Kids with disabilities need dual-language education more than anyone else,” Serpa said.

BPS has long been criticized for failing its students with disabilities and those who don’t speak English fluently — only narrowly avoiding a state takeover last year in part by pledging to improve services to these two groups. A cornerstone of its plan is an ambitious expansion of dual-language programs.

These programs, which bring together students who are learning English and native English speakers in a joint quest to become academically proficient in both languages, are considered one of the only ways to close the achievement gap between the two groups. English learners who go through these programs outperform their English learner peers on reading and math tests and graduate at higher rates.

Why dual-language instruction works so well is multifaceted. Research has found it’s better for kids whose dominant language is Spanish, for example, to spend part of their day getting academic instruction in their native language. Researchers and educators also highlight the benefits to self-esteem and belonging when kids who are traditionally seen as lacking because of their language background get to be the “experts” in front of their peers. And as English-speaking families across the socioeconomic spectrum flock to these programs, dual-language education has also been heralded as a method of school integration.

Related: A Spanish-English high school proves learning in two languages can boost graduation rates

Because students with disabilities and those dubbed English learners have among the lowest test scores and graduation rates in the district, advocates like Serpa believe they could benefit the most from a “gold standard” program.

Yet, so far, BPS has not followed that logic.

More than 14,600 BPS students are English learners. One in four has a disability. Yet just 6 percent of these students attend a dual-language school.

Dania Vázquez, headmaster of the Margarita Muñiz Academy dual-language high school, started her career in bilingual special education in the 1980s just as the twin specialties coalesced into a field. At her school, nearly 14 percent of students receive special education services, more than in Boston’s other dual-language programs, yet still below the district average.

She doesn’t know exactly why her school enrolls students with disabilities at higher rates than other dual language schools but noted the school coordinates its outreach to inform all families about its program.

“We are not choosing students,” Vázquez said. “Students are choosing us.”

At the Muñiz Academy, Vázquez said special education teachers spend time in classrooms supporting students with disabilities as they learn from core subject teachers.* The teachers also provide small group support in the school’s “resource room.”

“I don’t see the urgency for them to serve these kids.”

Suleika Soto, BPS mother and director of the Boston Education Justice Alliance

Historically, few English learners with disabilities in BPS have had access to both bilingual and special education.

“I don’t see the urgency for them to serve these kids,” said Suleika Soto, a BPS mother and director of the Boston Education Justice Alliance. Soto ranked two of the district’s dual-language programs at the top of her list of schools when she was registering her daughter for kindergarten but her child didn’t get into either program.

Soto enrolled in BPS after moving from the Dominican Republic when she was 7 and took bilingual classes until she became fluent in English. By the time she graduated, the state had banned bilingual education for immigrant students.

That ban, which lasted from 2002 to 2017, when the state Legislature offered districts renewed flexibility in language acquisition programs through the LOOK Act, continues to affect schools, both in staffing challenges and cultural perceptions around bilingual education.

Serpa said both English-speaking district administrators and non-English-speaking families need to be educated about the potential of dual-language programs.

“BPS has told a lot of families that the best thing for their kids is to learn only English,” Serpa said.

Related: How can being bilingual be an asset for white students and a deficit for immigrants?

Hai Son, principal of Mather Elementary School, sees the state ban’s continued impact on the teacher pipeline. A whole generation of bilingual students and young teachers who might have gone into bilingual education never did.

Students in Mather Elementary’s dual-language classrooms cannot receive special education services, according to Son, who said his team is already stretched thin creating a Vietnamese-language curriculum. Son said the district rushed the program’s opening last year, which pre-empted adequate planning time, leaving his team to design the program as they implement it.

Son said he expects to submit a plan for serving students with disabilities in his bilingual classrooms next year. If it is approved, the school could begin enrolling such students in 2024, he said.

How he will staff those classrooms, however, is an open question.

In a sweeping 2022 evaluation, the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation’s 78 largest school systems, criticized BPS for relying on teachers with multiple certifications to serve students with disabilities and those still learning English. While dual licensing technically complies with state and federal laws, critics say it stretches teacher capacity. In the district’s latest teacher contract, BPS committed to decreasing the practice.

Bilingual special education experts say the district can find more teachers by looking abroad or creating pipelines within the city’s immigrant communities.

Meanwhile, parents, teachers and community advocates report families are counseled to leave dual-language programs when it becomes clear their children need special education supports, or they’re told to enroll elsewhere from the start.

And mothers like Mejía see the high price of going down such a path. After Joangel entered elementary school and began spending the majority of his waking hours in an English-only classroom, Mejía said he quickly started losing his ability to communicate with his family in his native Spanish.

“There are parents paying so their children can learn another language,” Mejía said. Meanwhile, she is watching her son’s bilingualism slip away.

Although the district has pledged to open more bilingual programs, many remain skeptical. While the district plans to open 25 new bilingual programs by the end of the 2024-25 school year, it has yet to even announce when those programs will launch or where those programs will be located.*

Every year’s delay means a new class of kindergartners misses out on bilingual education, starting off their elementary school careers on a monolingual track. If the district cannot provide more dual-language programs and address why students with disabilities are underrepresented in those that are offered, families will continue to face frustration and regret.

Sonia Medina is the mother of two boys, 13-year-old Luis and 15-year-old Michael. Both have IEPs: Luis for ADD and Michael for ADHD and autism. When Medina, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was considering kindergartens, she wanted her eldest son to enter the dual-language program at the Hurley K-8 School but the district placed him in an English-only program elsewhere.

She wishes things had gone differently. Both children understand a decent amount of Spanish, but her younger son, in particular, speaks less fluently. In Santo Domingo, with family, language barriers prevent flowing conversations. And even when the boys can get their point across, Medina knows speaking is only part of the battle.

“It is one thing to speak [the language],” Medina said. “It’s another thing to write it, and another thing to read it.” In this aspect, Medina said her sons lost out. “The damage is done.”

* Clarification: This story was updated to clarify the nature of the Muñiz Academy’s services for kids with disabilities.

Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect the timing of when BPS will have 25 new bilingual programs in place.

This story about bilingual special education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post Students with disabilities often left out of popular ‘dual-language’ programs appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

BOSTON, Mass.– Después de que el hijo de María Mejía fuera diagnosticado con un trastorno del espectro autista en el preescolar, el tema de a cuál kínder debería ir se centró completamente en sus necesidades de educación especial.

Mejía y su esposo, inmigrantes hispanohablantes de la República Dominicana, supieron más tarde que Joangel, quien ahora tiene 7 años, habría sido un candidato ideal para una de las cuatro escuelas primarias de Boston que enseñan a los estudiantes tanto en inglés como en español, el idioma materno de Joangel. Los expertos dicen que tales programas ofrecen a los estudiantes de inglés la mejor oportunidad de éxito académico y las Escuelas Públicas de Boston (BPS, por sus siglas en inglés) se han comprometido a comenzar unas docenas más.

Pero los niños como Joangel a menudo quedan fuera. Sus familias, sin saberlo, se ven obligadas a participar en programas de educación especial únicamente en inglés para recibir servicios de sus programas de educación individualizados (IEP, por sus siglas en inglés) que ayuden a satisfacer sus necesidades de aprendizaje. Mejía dijo que se sorprendió cuando supo que había una alternativa.

“No me dijeron que era una escuela bilingüe”, dijo Mejía, “simplemente una escuela que aceptaron a un niño que tiene IEP”.

Los datos de inscripción del distrito, obtenidos por The Hechinger Report a través de una solicitud de registros públicos, muestran que los estudiantes con discapacidades —que representan el 22 por ciento de la población — están claramente subrepresentados en los siete programas de lenguaje dual del distrito. Representan entre el 8 y el 14 por ciento de la inscripción en los cinco programas de español e inglés. Ninguno está inscrito en el programa vietnamita-inglés de dos años en la Escuela Primaria Mather. Y en el programa de creole haitiano-inglés, hay tan pocos estudiantes con discapacidades inscritos que el distrito no puede revelar el total sin poner en riesgo la privacidad de los estudiantes.

Los expertos y defensores dicen que las disparidades se deben en parte a un problema de personal — simplemente no hay suficientes maestros de educación especial bilingüe — pero también son el resultado de una discriminación abierta y de conceptos culturales erróneos sobre si los estudiantes con discapacidades pueden manejar la educación bilingüe. El distrito se ha comprometido a agregar 25 programas bilingües más en los próximos dos años. Pero tanto los defensores como los funcionarios estatales cuestionan si BPS puede avanzar tan rápido, y las primeras señales sugieren que el distrito puede tener dificultades para incluir a los estudiantes con discapacidades a medida que abre nuevos programas: el programa bilingüe en la escuela Mather, ahora en su segundo año, solo estará listo para atender a estudiantes con discapacidades en su cuarto año, según el director.

BPS juega un papel importante en la determinación de la ubicación de los estudiantes de inglés, que constituyen casi un tercio del distrito, así como de los estudiantes con discapacidades. Las familias en Boston seleccionan sus escuelas preferidas, pero si necesitan servicios de inglés o educación especial, sus inscripciones están mandados al Centro de Evaluación y Orientación para los Recién Llegados o el Departamento de Educación Especial. Asesores de lenguaje hace recomendaciones basadas en el dominio del inglés y personal del departamento de educación especial identifica escuelas específicas para niños con IEP.

El portavoz de BPS, Max Baker, dijo en un comunicado que el distrito está “dedicado a convertirse en uno totalmente inclusivo, brindando acceso completo a una serie de servicios para todos los estudiantes”, pero se negó a responder a preguntas sobre por qué los estudiantes con discapacidades están subrepresentados en los programas de lenguaje dual o qué va a hacer para cambiar eso.

Los expertos de educación especial bilingüe dicen que la subrepresentación de los estudiantes con discapacidades es más que una oportunidad perdida: es discriminación. Dicen que no hay razón para que las escuelas no puedan atender a estudiantes con discapacidades. Y la ley de igualdad de oportunidades sugiere que tienen que hacerlo.

María Serpa, una pionera en el campo y miembro de la Fuerza Especial para Aprendices de Inglés del distrito, dijo que los datos de inscripción son increíbles.

“Los niños con discapacidades necesitan educación bilingüe más que nadie”.

María Serpa, miembro de la Fuerza Especial para Aprendices de Inglés de BPS

“Los niños con discapacidades necesitan educación bilingüe más que nadie”, dijo Serpa en inglés.

BPS ha sido criticado durante mucho tiempo por reprobar a sus estudiantes con discapacidades y a aquellos que no dominan el inglés — evitando una toma de control del estado el año pasado en parte al comprometerse a mejorar los servicios para estos dos grupos. Una piedra angular de su plan es la ambiciosa expansión de los programas bilingües.

Los programas de “lenguaje dual”, cuyos se unen los aprendices de inglés y los hablantes nativos intentando dominar los dos idiomas a nivel académico, se consideran una de las únicas vías para cerrar la brecha de rendimiento entre los dos grupos. Aprendices de inglés que toman estas clases superan a sus compañeros que también están aprendiendo el inglés en las pruebas de lectura y matemáticas y a graduarse en tasas más altas.

Por qué funcionan tan bien se debe a varias razones. La investigación ha encontrado que es mejor para los niños cuyo idioma dominante es el español, por ejemplo, pasar parte del día recibiendo instrucción académica en su idioma nativo. Los investigadores y educadores también destacan los beneficios para la autoestima y la pertenencia cuando los niños que tradicionalmente se consideran deficientes debido a su origen lingüístico se convierten en “expertos” frente a sus pares. Y a medida que las familias de habla inglesa de todo el espectro socioeconómico acuden en masa a los programas de lenguaje dual, también han sido anunciados como un método de integración escolar.

Hasta ahora, BPS no ha seguido esa lógica.

Más de 14.600 estudiantes de BPS son aprendices de inglés. Uno de cada cuatro de ellos tiene una discapacidad. Sin embargo, solo el 6 por ciento de ellos asisten a una escuela bilingüe.

Dania Vázquez, directora de la Academia Margarita Muñiz, la comenzó su carrera en educación especial bilingüe en la década de 1980 justo cuando las especialidades se fusionaron en un solo campo. En su escuela, casi el 14 por ciento de los estudiantes reciben servicios de educación especial, más que en otros programas bilingües de Boston, pero todavía por debajo del promedio del distrito.

Vázquez dijo que no sabe exactamente por qué su escuela inscribe a estudiantes con discapacidades a tasas más altas, pero señaló que la escuela hace un esfuerzo coordinado para informar a todas las familias acerca de su programa.

“No estamos eligiendo estudiantes”, dijo en inglés. “Los estudiantes nos eligen a nosotros”.

En la Academia Muñiz, Vázquez contó que los maestros de educación especial pasan tiempo en los salones de clases apoyando a los estudiantes con discapacidades mientras estos aprenden de los maestros de las materias en español o inglés.* También brindan apoyo en grupos pequeños en la “sala de recursos” de la escuela.

Históricamente, pocos aprendices de inglés con discapacidades en BPS han tenido estas oportunidades.

“No veo en ellos la urgencia de servir a estos niños”.

Suleika Soto, una madre y organizadora con la Alianza de Justicia Educativa de Boston

“No veo en ellos la urgencia de servir a estos niños”, dijo Suleika Soto, una madre en BPS y organizadora con la Alianza de Justicia Educativa de Boston. Soto trató de que su hija ingresara a una escuela bilingüe pero la niña no estaba elegida para ninguno de los dos programas que clasificó en la parte superior de su lista.

Soto se mudó a Boston desde la República Dominicana cuando tenía 7 años y tomó clases bilingües hasta que aprendió inglés con fluidez. Cuando se graduó de la escuela secundaria, el estado había prohibido la educación bilingüe para estudiantes inmigrantes.

Esa prohibición, que duró de 2002 a 2017 — cuando la legislatura estatal ofreció a los distritos una flexibilidad renovada en los programas de adquisición de inglés a través de la Ley LOOK — continúa afectando a las escuelas, tanto en desafíos de dotación de personal como en las percepciones culturales en torno a la educación bilingüe.

María Serpa dijo que tanto los administradores distritales como las familias inmigrantes deben ser educados sobre el potencial de los programas bilingües.

“BPS les ha dicho a muchas familias que lo mejor para sus hijos es aprender solo inglés”, dijo Serpa en inglés.

Hai Son, director de la Escuela Primaria Mather, lamenta la interrupción en el flujo de educadores bilingües. Toda una generación de estudiantes bilingües y jóvenes maestros que podrían haber ingresado a la educación bilingüe nunca lo hicieron.

Los estudiantes en las aulas bilingües de Mather no pueden recibir servicios de educación especial, según Son, quien dijo que su equipo ya está al límite creando un plan de estudios en idioma vietnamita. Son dijo que el distrito apresuró la apertura del programa el año pasado, lo que anuló el tiempo de planificación adecuado, obligando a que su equipo tuviera que diseñar un programa a medida que lo implementaban.

Son dijo que espera presentar un plan para atender a estudiantes con discapacidades en sus aulas bilingües el próximo año. Si se aprueba, la escuela podría comenzar a inscribir a esos estudiantes en 2024, dijo.

Sin embargo, la forma en que dotará de personal a esas aulas es una pregunta abierta.

En una amplia evaluación de 2022, el Consejo de Escuelas de Grandes Ciudades, una coalición de los 78 sistemas escolares más grandes del país, criticó a BPS por depender de maestros con múltiples certificaciones para atender a estudiantes con discapacidades y aquellos que aún están aprendiendo inglés. Si bien la licencia dual técnicamente cumple con las leyes estatales y federales, los críticos dicen que fuerza la capacidad de los maestros. En el último contrato de maestros del distrito, se hizo el compromiso de reducir la práctica.

Los expertos de educación especial bilingüe dicen que el distrito puede buscar maestros de otros países o crear canales dentro de las comunidades de inmigrantes de la ciudad.

Mientras tanto, padres, maestros y defensores comunitarios dicen que se aconseja a las familias que abandonen los programas bilingües cuando queda claro que sus hijos necesitan apoyo de educación especial, o se les dice que se inscriban en otro lugar desde el principio.

En el caso de Mejía, después de que Joangel ingresó a la primaria y comenzó a pasar la mayor parte de su tiempo en un salón de clases en el que solo se hablaba inglés, rápidamente comenzó a perder la capacidad de comunicarse con su familia en su español nativo.

“Hay padres que pagan para que sus hijos aprendan otro idioma”, dijo Mejía. Mientras tanto, ella ve cómo se desvanece la oportunidad de su hijo de ser bilingüe.

Aunque el distrito se ha comprometido a abrir más programas bilingües, muchos siguen siendo escépticos. Si bien el distrito planea abrir 25 nuevos programas bilingües para fines del año escolar 2024-25, aún tiene que anunciar cuándo se lanzarán esos programas o dónde se ubicarán esos programas.*

Cada año de retraso significa que una nueva clase de niños de kínder se perderá la educación bilingüe, comenzando sus carreras en la escuela primaria en un entorno monolingüe. Sin más programas ni un cálculo de por qué los estudiantes con discapacidades están subrepresentados en los que existen, las familias seguirán enfrentándose a la frustración y al arrepentimiento.

Sonia Medina es madre de dos niños: Luis, de 13 años y Michael, de 15 años. Ambos tienen IEP: Luis para desorden de déficit de atención y Michael para el autismo y desorden hiperactivo y déficit de atención. Cuando Medina, una inmigrante de la República Dominicana, estaba escogiendo un kínder, quería que su hijo mayor ingresara al programa de lenguaje dual del Hurley, pero el distrito lo colocó en otra escuela sin la educación bilingüe.

Ella desearía que las cosas hubieran sido de otra manera. Ambos niños entienden bien el español, pero su hijo menor, en particular, habla con menos fluidez. En Santo Domingo, en familia, las barreras del idioma impiden que las conversaciones fluyan. Incluso cuando pueden expresar su punto de vista, Medina sabe que hablar es solo una parte de conocer un idioma.

“Una cosa es tu hablarlo”, dijo Medina. “Otra cosa escribirlo, y otra cosa es leerlo”. En ese aspecto, Medina dijo que sus hijos se han perdido. “El daño está hecho”.

*Aclaración: Este artículo se actualizó para aclarar como funcionan los servicios de educación especial en la Academia Muñiz.

Este artículo ha sido corregida para reflejar el momento en que BPS tendrá 25 nuevos programas bilingües en funcionamiento.

Este artículo acerca de la educación especial bilingüe fue producido por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente sin fines de lucro enfocada en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación. Lee sus artículos en español.

The post Estudiantes con discapacidades a menudo son excluidos de populares programas de ‘lenguaje dual’ appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Here’s how decisions about schools are usually made: The same insiders call the shots behind closed doors, year after year. They make judgments about families and children based on limited data, rarely speaking to anyone directly. They write “strategic plans” that no one reads. Or, worse, they let politics prevail.

These bad habits result in schools that don’t match the needs or wants of the students, families and communities they serve. Bad leadership habits create divisions and breed distrust. They are the reason that waves of politically motivated policies and initiatives keep pounding schools but never effect real change.

As top education officials in Kentucky and Burlington, Vermont, we said: enough.

We began exploring new ways to shape schools with families and communities through our superintendents’ network, the Deeper Learning Dozen. We agreed that our school systems, in two entirely different parts of the country, needed to completely overhaul the way education is imagined and assembled, in ways we knew would mean taking big risks and upsetting entrenched practices.

Along the way, we found a huge appetite among our school families and communities to be directly engaged in the decision-making process; in both Burlington and Kentucky, they pushed hard to give far more people significant influence in shaping what we do. We aimed to reach across our divides to create real understanding.

In Vermont’s Burlington School District in mid-2020, we found an unmet desire among families to be seen and for schools to address the full needs of students.

We realized there was a need for an entirely different way to involve the community in crafting the district’s five-year strategic plan.

With the support of the Center for Innovation in Education (C!E), we assembled a coalition of residents — some who were appointed, some who applied and some who were invited from under-represented subgroups — which ultimately included families, students, school staff, community members and a school commissioner.

The coalition conducted more than 75 in-depth interviews with residents before synthesizing themes and building a strategic plan aligned to Burlington’s core needs and desires.

Bad leadership habits create divisions and breed distrust. They are the reason that waves of politically motivated policies and initiatives keep pounding schools but never effect real change.

As a result, the plan’s first priority became supporting belonging and well-being for students, families and staff — something requested over and over in the interviews.

The interviews also reflected support for deeper learning opportunities in which students feel challenged, empowered and engaged; more restorative approaches to discipline, which focus on community-building; and efforts to make each school a place where every child is valued.

The strategic plan in Burlington now includes mutual commitments and new metrics to help achieve and track all of these aspirations in the years ahead. A new committee will oversee the plan, including some original coalition members who will ensure that what was said gets done.

In Kentucky, as in so many places, major constituencies — students, teachers, parents, activists, others — feel dissatisfied and ignored. They perceive a small number of powerful people making major decisions in isolated settings, driven by their own priorities — not those of everyday families.

In the wake of the pandemic and social unrest related to the murders of George Floyd and Kentucky’s Breonna Taylor, the need to really listen to our families and communities has perhaps never been greater.

Related: New book advocates using pandemic lessons to reinvent education

Through a commissioner’s virtual listening tour, we gathered input on our education systems from thousands of Kentuckians. We then worked with C!E to support a statewide coalition of more than 50 teachers, students, families and community members from every region in the state to identify the themes in what we heard.

We learned that Kentuckians want the experiences students have in school to align more closely with the realities of the world awaiting them after graduation. Literacy and math are important, but so are deep, rich and meaningful experiences that many Kentuckians feel have been crowded out by the push to raise test scores. Moreover, Kentuckians want school to be a place where kids feel safe, surrounded by people who care about them.

These insights profoundly shifted our efforts and became the foundation for a new vision for education in Kentucky that prioritizes these goals. The state has since established another diverse council of Kentuckians to advise the department on fulfilling these promises, including a new network of districts enacting this vision in ways that make sense locally.

Already, Kentucky is rethinking major systems like state assessment and accountability, and realigning how money is spent to support the kinds of project-based, deeper-learning opportunities our families say they want.

Related: OPINION: Still skeptical about mastery-based learning? Here’s a better way of looking at what it is and does

We hope to inspire other jurisdictions to follow similar paths, recognizing that strategies must be tailored to local needs, values and sensitivities.

Change on this scale is never easy, and national partisan issues may distract from or compete with locally driven work. But the right path is one shaped hand in hand with the communities we serve. By listening and directly engaging with students, families and community members, we are building trust as leaders to act on their behalf — and to deliver on an agenda that’s not ours alone, but theirs.

Jason E. Glass is Kentucky’s commissioner of Education. Tom Flanagan is superintendent of the Burlington (Vermont) School District.

This story about community involvement in school decisions was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

The post OPINION: Schools should be shaped with help from the people they serve appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Last fall, U.S. college enrollment fell for the third straight year, part of a significant and steady drop of nearly one million students since the start of the pandemic.

At the same time, employers, including higher education institutions, have been grappling with intense staff shortages.

We are overlooking a segment of potential students and workers who could help address both challenges: immigrants and refugees.

Millions of immigrants are either unemployed or underemployed in the U.S. today, representing a largely untapped but robust pipeline of potential learners and employees.

We just need to help them with their English skills.

Shockingly, the United States currently serves the needs of just 4 percent of adult English learners.

Both four-year universities and community colleges could have a significant role to play in the critical work of providing better access to quality English instruction. But to do so, they must reimagine what English language learning looks like inside and outside their classrooms. It’s imperative that they create personalized, career-focused educational opportunities designed around the needs of all English learners — newcomers as well as those who’ve been living and working in the U.S. for years — and the labor market.

Related: English learners in college: From marginalized to invisible

Many higher education institutions are still relying on outdated, ineffective and unscalable teaching models, despite clear evidence of alternatives that could help adult English learners acquire language more effectively and efficiently. New research explains how personalized language learning offered in relevant, real-world contexts is far more effective than grammar-driven approaches, fill-in-the-blanks exercises and the canned, scripted dialogues still commonly used in many ESL programs.

Institutions should instead focus on instruction rooted in “task-based language teaching,” an approach that organizes courses around specific tasks rather than abstract rules of grammar and conjugation. Task-based courses equip learners with the language skills they need to accomplish their goals — from enrolling in a graduate program to getting a new job to communicating with their children’s teachers.

Task-based language training dovetails with Integrated Education and Training (IET), an approach many community colleges are already using to provide skill-based support for career training programs and apprenticeships; several four-year universities and employers also offer successful models to study.

At Denver’s Emily Griffith Technical College, for example, students can use their performance in computer-based, career-aligned English courses to demonstrate readiness for certification programs in nursing and computer networking. This model allows learners to improve their English skills at their own pace so that they can directly enter the certification programs without taking a formal ESL class first.

The United States currently serves the needs of just 4 percent of adult English learners.

At the University of Maryland, frontline employees across campus have access to English language instruction designed to quickly improve communication and collaboration and open up new employment and learning opportunities on campus and beyond.

And, finally, higher education institutions can partner with companies to offer employer-based English programs alongside other educational benefits. A growing number of companies already provide such training. Employees at the Alabama-based Taziki’s Mediterranean Café, for example, receive personalized English instruction designed for hospitality workers, many of whom are also immigrants and refugees.

These models are all ripe for replication. With the two-fold challenge of declining college enrollment and ongoing labor shortages, it’s never been more urgent for institutions to find novel ways to attract new students and help a new pool of qualified candidates enter the workforce.

If community colleges and four-year universities work to reimagine English instruction, they can drive enrollment, address worker shortages and unlock career opportunities for new Americans — improving the lives of millions of workers and the economy as a whole.

Katie Brown is founder of EnGen, a Certified B Corporation that has partnered with community colleges, universities and employers to deliver personalized, contextualized, mobile-first, career-aligned English language instruction to immigrants, refugees and speakers of other languages.

This story about adult English learners was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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