The Fate of Dual Language in the DeVos Department of Education
By Bill Rivers, Executive Director of Joint National Committee for Languages
My day job is lobbying, as the Executive Director of the Joint National Council for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies. My work involves coordinating with a coalition of some 140 member organizations to advocate for all things language-related here in Washington, DC. Since the last election, this work has been challenging, to say the least.
The story of languages in the US hasn’t changed, and I don’t think the country has changed either.
We still have hundreds of languages spoken here, languages still matter for the common good – national security, job growth, social justice – and bilingualism and biliteracy still confer enormous, lifelong benefits to the individual.
And, as far as society goes, we’re still increasingly diverse, parents from all walks of life want biliteracy for their children, and language communities all over the country want to see their heritage and cultures passed on to the next generation.
What has changed, and painfully, is the way that certain parts of our society now feel empowered to talk about others. The anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, anti-globalism rhetoric, now too often matched with real action, is frightening and disheartening.
That brings me to the first challenge in advocating for languages and biliteracy: keeping our own morale up, and reminding ourselves that we have a great and powerful story to tell about languages. Grass-roots support has increased over the past two years: for example, every state is at least working towards the Seal of Biliteracy, and a Global Seal, for parochial and charter schools, among others who might not have access to a State Seal, is now available. That’s just one example of real interest in what we do.
Continue reading to find out more about Bill River’s insights….
The second challenge is keeping all of our programs whole and funded. This is where I get to the title of this month’s column. One of the key programs at the federal level is the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), currently authorized under Title III of the Every Student Succeeds Act, but originally created in the 1990s to administer funding for English Learner programs. The name of the office is a bit of a misnomer, especially as it has been the key promoter of biliteracy and dual language immersion in the Department of Education for several years.
However, it’s existence is under threat from the dreaded march of “reorganization.” Ostensibly motivated by the anodyne desire to make our government – which we all pay for – more efficient, the reorganization of the US Department of Education would eliminate OELA as we know it, merging most of the staff and functions of the office into the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. While we’ve been told that this is for efficiency’s sake – and the folks behind this at the Department of Education and the White House may well believe this – it’s hard not to see it in the context of all of the other actions of the Trump administration regarding immigrants and minorities. Losing OELA means losing the focal point in the Department of Education for Dual Language Immersion, and losing decades of collective expertise on English Learners, Dual Language, and biliteracy.
So, our challenge now, and where we need everyone’s help, is putting pressure on Congress to stop the reorganization. You’ll hear more about this in the coming weeks, as our coalition implements its plan to get Congress on board. Stay tuned!
Dr. Bill Rivers has more than 25 years of leadership experience in culture and language for economic development and national security, with expertise in the private, public, and non-profits sectors, in research, assessment, program evaluation, policy development and advocacy. Before joining JNCL-NCLIS, he served as Chief Scientist at Integrated Training Solutions, Inc., a small business in Arlington, Virginia. While at ITS, he served in a contractor role as the Chief Linguist of the National Language Service Corps. Prior to working at ITS, he was co-founder of the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland.
Author: Bill Rivers
Dr. Bill Rivers has more than 25 years of leadership experience in culture and language for economic development and national security, with expertise in the private, public, and non-profits sectors, in research, assessment, program evaluation, policy development and advocacy. Before joining JNCL-NCLIS, he served as Chief Scientist at Integrated Training Solutions, Inc., a small business in Arlington, Virginia. While at ITS, he served in a contractor role as the Chief Linguist of the National Language Service Corps. Prior to working at ITS, he was co-founder of the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland.