State Laws/Legislation

The federal government sets laws that mandate state and district's obligations to educating English learners and provides supplemental funding to support those efforts. States have wide discretion to set their own policies regarding the instructional models used, the process for identifying and exiting EL students, data reporting, and teacher preparation to work with ELs. The resources included here highlight a variety of state laws and policies that are impacting the educational experiences of English learners. Read more

Amaya Garcia, November 8, 2017

In 1998, California voters approved Proposition 227, a ballot initiative that effectively eliminated bilingual instruction in favor of English-only approaches. Over the next decade, bilingual education was eroded through sharp declines in programs and in bilingually certified teachers. But, just as the state was moving away from bilingual education, one school district in Southern California was taking a decidedly different approach. This paper explores how Chula Vista scaled up dual language immersion programs during a time of English-only policies.

Janie Tankard Carnock, August 16, 2017

In June 2015, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed House Bill 3499 for English learner students into law, describing it as a “watershed moment” in the state’s educational system. The law broke new ground for how to use data to identify and support the lowest-performing districts for ELs across the state. Critically, it came with a dedicated, permanent funding stream: $12.5 million every two years. In the years since its passage, the law has triggered an important sequence of actions. Oregon provides an illustration of what it can look like to apply key principles related to EL data to concrete policy reforms.

Janie Tankard Carnock, November 3, 2016

Around 30 percent of families across New York State now speak a language other than English at home, resulting in 240,000 English learners in the state’s primary and secondary schools who speak nearly 200 different languages. New York State has redesigned their policies and practices to better support the education of its long-established, yet still growing multilingual population. This report highlights both the bright spots and the emerging challenges of New York’s EL reforms by charting their inception, design and early implementation.