Multilingual Education for All

Yes we can, and we should.

I got a very heartening email this morning with this announcement from Californians Together:

Today, we’re excited to share the launch of the Multilingual Education for All website—marking an important milestone in a new, statewide effort to make multilingual education a defining feature of California’s P–12 education system….

I encourage you to

👉🏾 Visit the Multilingual Education for All website: mle4all.org.

I hope we can all get behind this effort. As I’ve written on this Substack and elsewhere, we need to reframe the discussion about bilingual education—or multilingual education—by advocating for it with the intent of achieving bi-/multi-lingualism for all, not just for English Leaners.

Bilingual education has a history and tradition in the U.S. that most people simply do not know. It goes back much farther than the 1960s, the beginning of the modern bilingual education period that coincided with the escape of well-to-do Cubans from the Castro revolution and, as well, with the civil rights movement. If you’re interested in learning about this history, you can read about it here in English or here en español.

There are so many reasons—cultural, intellectual, cognitive, economic, vocational—to support long-term bilingual education as a pathway to at least bilingualism and biliteracy. There is research supporting “the bilingual advantage” and the advantage of long-term bilingual education over short-term, or “transitional,” bilingual education. See here.

It seems to me self-evident that knowing more than one language is a net plus for anyone. It’s commonplace throughout the rest of the world. Sadly, the United States seems to suffer from “monolingual myopia.” We can do something about this. I hope the effort announced by Californians Together helps us make progress toward the goal of bilingualism at least, and maybe even multilingualism.

What about literacy instruction?

Now, if we could only get Californians Together as committed to solid, fully research-backed literacy instruction…… That would be a wondrous thing. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go here: “Reading research and bilingual education.”

Bottom line: Putting literacy instruction on a sounder footing would help put bilingual education on a sounder footing. Poor literacy instruction and attendant poor literacy attainment are the most important school-based factors preventing English (or Multilingual) Learners from reclassifying to full English proficiency within 6 years of school entry in the U.S. This is true whether these students are in bilingual education or English only education. (See “Reading research and bilingual education.”)

Here is something we can most definitely do something about. Right. Now. There is a tremendous need for educators, policy makers, and the public at large to have better, more accurate information and understanding about how students learn to read—regardless of language and whether it is a first, second, or later language—and what teachers and others can do to help them attain the highest possible levels of literacy.

Maybe Californians Together and other organizations equally committed to bilingualism and biliteracy can commit themselves to more effective and equitable literacy instruction. That would be a welcome development to benefit students, teachers, the state, and possibly the entire country.