The Rhode Island Seal of Biliteracy: Toward Recognizing all Multilingual Learners

• In Event: Multilingual Education Across Global Contexts

Proposal

Communicating in multiple languages is valuable for individuals, both practically and culturally. Becoming proficient in more than one language is associated with improved cognitive abilities, academic skills, and intercultural competences (Fox et al., 2019). While the labor market benefits of biliteracy in the United States are mixed overall, young bilinguals in the early stages of their careers experience a salary premium, in part through a higher likelihood of obtaining a college degree (Callahan & Gándara, 2014). As multilingualism is increasingly valued in our society, community, business, and legislative leaders have turned to the K-12 school system to promote language learning. The Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL), an award given to individual students to recognize their proficiency of more than one language, has grown into a popular initiative to promote and recognize multilingualism.
In 2011, California enacted the first law in the United States introducing the SoBL, an award for high school graduates who demonstrated “proficiency in English and one or more other world languages” (Seal of Biliteracy, 2020). In 2022, four states enacted similar legislation bringing to 49 the number of states with a SoBL. The explicit goals of the SoBL include both promoting world language learning for English speakers, and recognition of biliteracy for students who speak a language other than English at home. While the specific requirements students must fulfill to be awarded a SoBL differ across states and districts, they typically include earning a high score on the English Language Arts portion of high school tests and on a second language test Districts and schools make decisions on which languages to support and what tests to administer based on state-level guidelines and local capacity. Recognizing biliteracy of speakers across all languages is important to signal the value of the rich linguistic diversity of students in many parts of the country. However, the relatively small number of languages in which the SoBL is being awarded across states demonstrates shortcomings of the current implementation in many states and districts.
The growth in the number of states awarding SoBL in recent years has been met with an important body of work critically analyzing the extent to which all students and languages are recognized. Examining the implementation of the SoBL in California, Subtirelu and colleagues (2019) find that the requirements favor English-speaking students studying a world language in school, and that schools with large proportions of low-income families are less likely to participate. One way in which English-speaking students can be advantaged is the difference in timing of the proficiency assessments. While some states infer English proficiency of students if they meet the graduation requirements, others use the 10th or 11th grade ELA state test while the proficiency for the other language can be demonstrated later (Heineke et al., 2018). In Minnesota, the goals of the legislation introducing the SoBL explicitly aimed at recognizing speakers of non-dominant languages, but implementation at the district level still makes this difficult to award seals equitably (de Galbert & Woogen, 2022). These studies recognize both the additional burden placed on non-English speakers in obtaining a SoBL, and differential benefits to those awarded a seal.

Rhode Island joined most other states in 2021 when it started awarding a state SoBL to students graduating from high school . Thanks in part to advocacy from the Coalition for a Multilingual Rhode Island (CMRI), the governor signed the house bill 7607 requiring public higher education institutions to award college course credit to SoBL recipients in June 2022 . In the first two years of implementation of the state seal, RI awarded 755 and 971 seals respectively. However, only 22 of 65 school districts awarded seals in 2022, pointing to the need for more research to understand the barriers and advocacy to include more districts and languages (de Galbert, 2023).
This paper will use a mixed methods approach to identify the progress made toward expanding the SoBL in Rhode Island, and identify the barriers existing to award it to all multilingual students. Administrative data from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), the Rhode Island Teachers of English Language Learners (RITELL) and the Rhode Island Foreign Language Association (RIFLA) will serve as the basis for describing progress toward the SoBL. Interviews with key stakeholders in these three organizations, as well as district officials will complement the quantitative data. The main research questions answered will be:
What are the main barriers to awarding the SoBL to all multilingual learners in RI?
What are the most successful strategies used in districts that have been awarding the SoBL to speakers of non-dominant languages?

Author

• Pierre De Galbert, Brown University