Creating DLBE (Dual Language Bilingual Education) Programs That Center Equity in the Face of School Choice Policies

• In Event: Overcoming the Gentrification of Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework
In this presentation, we explore how one prevailing trend in education— the increase in school choice policies across the United States (Berends, 2015)—is impacting another: the increasing number of US dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs (Roberts, 2021). The intersection of these movements has meant pressures, tensions, and consequences for who gets served by bilingual programs and why, often making equity an increasingly elusive goal for serving Latinx bilingual families (Cervantes-Soon et al., 2017; Valdez, Freire, & Delavan, 2016). Yet, strong educational leaders with ideological clarity (Alfaro, 2019) can navigate constraints to work for and with their Latinx bilingual communities (e.g., Izquierdo, DeMatthews, Balderas, & Gregory, 2019; Menken & Solorza, 2015). In this presentation, we address two questions:
1) What are the pressures that school choice policies exert on DLBE leaders?
2) How can educational leaders lead for equity in the face of school choice pressures?

To understand how school choice policies can impact DLBE programs and place pressure on school leaders, we draw on the theoretical lenses of neoliberalism—the idea that society and people’s lives are best organized through marketplace logic and competition (Harvey, 2005)—and ideological gentrification—a terms to describe the shift in DLBE schools away from providing socially transformative, culturally-affirming education to a focus on providing a profitable tool for students’ resumes (Bernstein et al., 2021).

Methods
Through these lenses, we analyze interviews with 21 school and district leaders in three different state contexts (Arizona, California and Texas). We engaged in an independent first cycle coding (Miles, Huberman & Saldaña, 2014). We then came together to discuss codes and to agree on the final coding scheme that we used to identify patterns for each of our research questions.

Results/Findings
We found four interrelated school choice pressures:1) Education is a competitive enterprise; 2) Marketing is part of the job and DLBE is a brand; 3) Keep “customers” happy (even at the cost of broader mission); and 4) Every school for itself (Don’t collaborate with the competition). To illustrate how leaders can respond to these pressures in creative and equity-oriented ways, we share two cases of visionary educational leaders. In the first, we highlight how the ideological clarity of a DLBE school principal in California led her to take concrete actions to ensure Spanish-speaking families AND African American families felt welcome in her DBLE program. In the second case, we highlight a district leader in Texas who kept emergent bilingual students and families at the center of important decisions that needed to be made district-wide in order to ensure the continuation of bilingual programs.

Scholarly Significance
The pressures created by school choice and neoliberal reform policies are a reality for DLBE schools. Identifying these pressures as well as concrete ways equity-minded leaders have dealt with them provides avenues for creating programs that ultimately serve the ends of social justice.

Authors

• Katie Bernstein, Arizona State University

• Kathryn I. Henderson, University of Texas - San Antonio

• Sofia Chaparro, University of Colorado - Denver

• Adriana Alvarez, University of Colorado - Denver