How can policymakers encourage the creation of diverse, integrated two-way DLI settings-while still protecting equitable access for ELs? To help answer that question, The Century Foundation and Children’s Equity Project constructed a first-of-its-kind database covering more than 1,600 dual-language immersion programs, serving 1.1 million students in a geographically, racially, socioeconomically, culturally, and politically diverse array of communities across thirteen states and the District of Columbia. 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. It’s perhaps no surprise that DLI programs have been growing in early learning programs and preK–12 settings around the country.īut without structures in place to protect equity, the linguistic integration that appears to be key to two-way DLI’s success can become colonization that eventually displaces ELs from these schools. These integrated programs best advance ELs’ linguistic and academic development, support these children’s emerging bilingualism, and are popular with a diverse range of families. These programs offer linguistic and academic instruction in two languages, and enroll roughly equal shares of native English speakers and native speakers of the program’s non-English partner language. schools.Ī growing research consensus shows that, over time, linguistically integrated “two-way” dual-language immersion (DLI) programs serve ELs best. A key component of meeting this challenge is advancing educational equity for ELs, which requires prioritizing programs that help the largest possible share of ELs reach English proficiency and be reclassified as former ELs within their first five to seven years in U.S. 2Īs a result, education leaders in essentially every community across the country face crucial decisions regarding how best to serve this diverse, high-potential group of students. What’s more, while a majority of these children are native-born American citizens, many are children of immigrants living in communities facing the systemic pressures and biases inherent to the American immigrant experience.
These students are disproportionately likely to be children of color and disproportionately likely to be growing up in low-income households. Indeed, roughly one in ten American students is currently classified as an EL.ĮLs face systemic educational challenges rooted in language, race, class, and nativity. students were formally classified as ELs in 2019-a 1.3 million-student increase since 2000. school-aged children speak one of more than 400 non-English languages at home. Policymakers can ensure that ELs have fair opportunities to access these programs by locating them in schools with significant EL populations, reserving seats for native speakers of non-English languages, and expanding the number of available DLI seats by investing in growing programs to train more bilingual teachers.Ĭhildren who are English learners (ELs) comprise a large, diverse, and growing student group in U.S.A new Century Foundation and Children’s Equity Project database suggests that increasingly, ELs are at risk of being pushed out of DLI programs in some communities because of high demand from English-dominant families, often tied to sustained pressure from local gentrification trends.Enthusiasm for DLI programs from English-dominant, often white and wealthy, families can make this linguistic integration difficult to sustain.Research suggests that these linguistically integrated two-way DLI programs are the best way to support ELs’ long-term linguistic and academic development.Two-way DLI programs are linguistically integrated, enrolling roughly equal shares of native speakers of English and native speakers of the program’s non-English partner language.students, and they do best when schools support the development of their emerging bilingual abilities. English learners (ELs) make up a growing share of U.S.Dual-language immersion (DLI) programs provide academic instruction in multiple languages in order to help students succeed academically while becoming fully bilingual and biliterate.8Reforms to Improve Equitable Access to DLI.6Defining Equitable Access to DLI: A Moving Target.3The Evidentiary Base for Expanding ELs’ Access to Bilingual Learning Opportunities.
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