Dive Brief:
- The Oregon Department of Education recognized eight school districts, including the David Douglas School District (DDSD) outside of Portland, as succeeding with ELL programs.
- DDSD created and used a model called "Language for All," which includes increased collaboration with community partners and parents and blended funding streams.
- Instead of pulling ELL students out for individualized language and reading instruction, Education Post reports, all elementary school students participate every day in oral-language development time.
Dive Insight:
Bilingual ed can bring economic advantages for students later on in life, and support for bilingual education is growing in the US, although the nation still lags behind others countries in terms of producing a multilingual workforce ready for the global stage. States like Utah have recently invested in language immersion programs, using around $2 million annually to incorporate teaching Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Portugues, and Spanish in the classroom to roughly 25,000 students. A federal push exists as well: President Obama unveiled his "1 Million Strong" initiative in September 2015, a program that looks to teach Mandarin to one million American students by the year 2020.
Still, educators are divided on English-only learning versus bilingual inclusivity, although bilingualism advocacy appears to be a growing trend in the U.S, as does the number of ELL learners. It's likely that educators will continue to grapple with evolving teaching methodology. Accountability in ELL learning has also been up for debate, and in recent days, education experts have questioned how ESSA will impact ELL. The new education law abandons federal accountability measures specific to English language learners.
According to the Institute of Education Statistics, in the District of Columbia, Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas, "10% or more of public school students were English language learners, with ELL students constituting 22.8% of public school enrollment in California."