Bilingual Education Parents' Decision-Making Experience With Local School Councils: The Power to Shape Dual Language Policy

• In Event: Contra la Corriente: Cultivating Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Learning Spaces for Chicagoland Latinx Youth

Abstract

Chicago is home to one of the first public dual language bilingual education (DLBE) schools in the United States (Inter-American Magnet School was started in 1975) (Reyes & Crawford, 2012), as well as one of the first models of decentralized public school governance that aimed to shift educational decision-making power to local parents and community members (Local School Councils, LSCs, were created in 1988) (Hess, 1991). Our session explores the possibilities and limitations of parent engagement using school-based governance, and specifically situates it in relation to frameworks that more critically call for equity in DLBE program growth (Chaparro, 2021).

We use a Critical Race Theory in Education lens and analytical framework to make meaning of our experiences as mothers of students enrolled in a Chicago Public School (CPS) DLBE program, former Co-chairs of the school’s LSC, and linguistics/education researchers, and to examine one district-wide language policy that was started in 2016. Employing a counter-narrative qualitative methodology we share our reflections about the advocacy work that was facilitated because of the decision making power that is granted through participation in LSCs, as well as the nuanced ways in which this type of governance can center more privileged families. Our data sources include public records and our own reflections on our work interacting with parents and other stakeholders in our school community and in the school district.

We use two examples to illustrate the possibilities and limitations of LSCs with regard to equity work in DLBE. The first example of possibility is from our personal experience as LSC members of a DL public school. While historically, our school enrolled a majority Latinx and working-class student population, in the years during our LSC tenure the preschool demographics shifted toward a more white and affluent student population. We share our experiences in the LSC advocacy work for a school enrollment policy to prioritize emergent bilingual students; a policy that later would be set as a district-wide DLBE priority. The second example of limitations comes from research on the expansion of DLBE programs in CPS since 2016, where the largest number of programs were established in highly gentrified and/or gentrifying neighborhoods (Dominguez-Fret & Oberto, 2022). Beginning in 2016 CPS began the Academic Program Request for Proposal (RFP) process as the main mechanism for establishing DLBE programs across the district. In this process administrators in collaboration with LSCs competed for limited opportunities to establish programs (Alcalá & Morales, 2022). We highlight how in this particular instance working-class immigrant parents and communities were not centered when it came to DLBE program creation.

We find that the LSCs can and in some instances do live up to their intended purpose of shifting local control to parents and communities. However, like with any system, the impacts of institutional racism and inequities also influence how this power is wielded within a local community. LSCs are a tool for sharing political power with local communities, without appropriate critical consideration of the needs of the community they may be an opportunity wasted.

Authors

• Ramona Alcalá, University of Illinois at Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Megan Tzeitel Marshall, University of Illinois at Chicago
  Presenting Author