Using Dual-Language Bilingual Education Programs to Engineer Student Populations for "School Turnaround"

• In Event: Gentrification 2.0 in Dual-Language Bilingual Education: New Ways of Peeling the Layers From Districts to Schools

Abstract

Purpose and Background
Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) is currently on the rise in U.S. schools, during a period of widespread anti-immigrant sentiment and policies. While this may seem paradoxical, our research shows how DLBE programs actually reflect the broader context. New York City (NYC) offers an example of this where, through targeted funding to schools to open or expand bilingual education, 156 new DLBE programs opened from 2015-2019 (Author, 2019). However, only 6.2% of all emergent bilinguals (EBs) are actually enrolled in DLBE programs (NYCDOE, 2019). Our research examines this trend.

Theoretical Framework
Our research is grounded in the literature on U.S. language education policy (e.g., Author, 2017; Johnson, 2013), documenting how bilingual education was designed to meet the needs of EBs when it was first introduced in federal policy in the wake of the Civil Rights movement (García, 2009; Goldenberg & Wagner, 2015). However, language policy research on the gentrification of DLBE programs highlights how the civil rights focus of bilingual education has been de-centered in recent years (e.g., Valdez et al., 2016; Palmer, 2010), raising new concerns about equity and justice.

Methods
We focused on DLBE expansion in three NYC schools (an elementary school, a middle school, and a junior high/high school) that recently opened new DLBE programs (Creswell, 2013). We conducted interviews with school leaders, educators, and families in participating schools, which were coded to identify prevalent themes (Miles et al., 2013; Saldaña, 2015). We also gathered and analyzed citywide and school-level demographic data about bilingual education enrollment.

Results
The student population of the elementary and junior high/high school was predominately black and Latinx prior to opening their DLBE programs. The elementary school principal opened a new DLBE program in Japanese, bringing in Japanese speaking students and white students, while enrolling only a few children who had previously attended the school and very few EBs. The junior high/high school principal wanted to diversify her school in the name of school integration, and recruited more privileged (mainly white) students from a nearby elementary school by promising a new French DLBE program. The middle school opened new DLBE strand programs in Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, and Hebrew, and the proportion of EBs enrolled in the school actually declined after these programs opened, while the school’s white population increased.

Participants in our research described all three schools as “struggling” prior to opening their DLBE programs, in reference to low performance on accountability measures such as standardized test scores. They also stated that the new DLBE programs were opened to bring about “school turnaround” – improving student performance and the school’s reputation.

Scholarly Significance
The expansion of DLBE brought more privileged students into all three schools, displacing student populations that previously enrolled. Taken together, these cases show how school leaders under pressure to improve their schools are turning to DLBE programs to engineer their schools’ student populations in order to do so. Findings offer implications for DLBE and language education policies.

Authors

• Kate Menken, Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York

• Sharon Avni, Borough of Manhattan Community College - CUNY

• Ivana Espinet, Kingsborough Community College CUNY