Unforgetting Language Legacies, Imagining Equitable Futures: Re-visioning Dual-Language Education in Massachusetts

• In Event: Not all Bilingual Education Policies are the Same: Learning from History to Build the Future

Abstract

Objectives
Drawing on historical state legislation (LOOK Act, 2017) and fresh findings from a statewide Dual Language Landscape Analysis, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Office of Language Acquisition (OLA) is overhauling its 2018 guidance to help cross-functional district teams design, self-assess, and sustain culturally and linguistically affirming dual-language programs. This session explores how OLA is rewriting its 2018 Dual-Language Bilingual Education & Transitional Bilingual Education (DL/TBE) Guidance to a 2025 edition that clarifies program expectations, dismantles inequities in access, and equips district teams to design, implement, and expand academically rigorous, culturally sustaining bilingual programs.

Theoretical Framework
The study treats guidance as a living artifact co-constructed with stakeholders rather than a top-down compliance tool. Improvement science frames iterative testing of policy ideas (Bryk et al., 2010), while Raciolinguistic Justice (Rosa & Flores, 2023) interrogates how colonial language hierarchies persist in statutes, proposals, and classroom practice—aligning with AERA 2026’s call to “unforget” historical exclusions while imagining equitable futures.

Methods & Data Sources
A mixed-qualitative design braided multiple data streams:
Interviews. Directors from Dual Language Programs from across the state participated in two rounds of interviews focused on understanding their perceptions of current guidance. The interviews resulted in a Dual-Language Landscape Analysis.
Policy Mapping. Multiple statutes and regulations guide practitioners as they implement their Dual Language Programs. The study conducted a cross-walk of both enabling statutes (e.g., LOOK Act 2017; M.G.L. c. 71A §10) and regulations (603 CMR 7.06, 7.14; 14.05) to identify implementation gaps that need to be addressed in updated guidance.

Results
While the Look Act opened the door to establishing dual language programs across the state, other existing statutes and regulations either created challenging contexts (e.g., bilingual teachers needing superfluous certifications to comply with pre-existing regulations) or failed to provided needed guidance. Analysis surfaced four pervasive gaps:
Unclear guidance to sustain dual language bilingual education;
Unclear new program proposal process;
Needed professional development for school and district leaders; and
No high quality instructional material adoption process for curricula in languages other than English.

Significance to the Field
The study offers a replicable model for other states and large districts by demonstrating how archival policy, stakeholder testimony, and improvement science cycles can co-produce equity-focused guidance. It advances scholarship by:
Theorizing guidance as a dynamic equity tool rather than static regulation.
Providing validated instruments (proposal rubric, language-allocation scenario builder) that can be adapted nationally to raise biliteracy attainment among racially and linguistically minoritized students.
Participants will leave with concrete strategies and resources to translate historical critique into transformative bilingual education practice.

Author

• Elenita Irizarry Ramos, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education