Changes to State-Level International education policymaking for K-12 schools in the US since 2010

• In Event: Educational Policy and Social Change

Proposal

The first decade of the 2000s saw a concerted effort to develop and implement state-level international education policies for K-12 public schools in the United States. A 2010 joint report by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Asia Society noted that half of states – 25 in all – had participated in the States Network on International Education in the Schools, leading to task forces and councils on international education in 19 states, 19 state summits, 19 state-level reports, and 18 states passing legislation promoting International Education and World Language study between 1999 and 2009 (CCSSO & Asia Society, 2010). The current author reviewed this policymaking activity, with a focus on Ohio and Indiana, in a paper published in 2009 and presented at CIES in 2010 (Author, 2009).

While significant scholarship has been published since 2010 about national international education policies outside the United States, as well as an important recent book that included several studies of province-level international education policies in Canada (Tamtik et al, eds., 2020), we found no research on state-level international education policies in the US since 2010.

In the absence of recent research, this paper inquires into the state-level international education policy and legislative activity since 2010 in all 50 US states. Preliminary analysis of our empirical research of each US state reveals the following:

In comparison to the 19 states enacting legislation on international education in the first decade of the 2000s, the second decade saw only three states pass legislation explicitly promoting a broad definition of international education – California (2021) legislation encouraged international education and exchanges; Utah (2018) resolution “Encouraging and Supporting International Education and Cultural Exchanges”, and Pennsylvania (2017) established a Global Education Task Force. Beyond those specific policies, five states have passed legislation expanding or requiring world language study. Most interesting in our findings is that 44 states and the District of Columbia, starting with California (2011) as well as the Navajo Nation, have adopted a high school graduation “Seals of Biliteracy” (Alabama, Alaska, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and South Dakota have not). These Seals integrate many of the economic development and national security justifications Author (2009) found in international education policies passed between 1999 and 2010.

Further analysis will look at six states with the most active policymaking and implementation activities since 2010: California, North Carolina, Utah and Delaware, as well as the Ohio and Indiana, which were analyzed in the previous study by Author (2009).

We hypothesize diminishing policymaking activity may result from: (a) focus on implementation of earlier IE polices; (b) shift toward Seals of Biliteracy that focus on the language learning of middle and upper class students as an expeditious way of promoting international education in an era of increasing hostility to cosmopolitan education efforts in the US, particularly during the Trump Administration, and (c) the retreating shock of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC that we argue were a strong prompt for IE efforts in the early 2000s have resulted in less political capital behind IE efforts, coupled with hostility during the Trump Administration to the US Department of State and its international exchange efforts.

We conclude this paper with a discussion about the possible impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an impetus to reenergize international education efforts, and eventually, policymaking, in the 2020s.

This paper will be of interest to the members of CIES because of the organization’s historic focus on the study of international education; indeed, it was the prospect of significant federal funding for international education in the US that prompted CIES to add the “I” to its acronym in the late 1960s, as well as member interest in promoting international and global education efforts in schools in the US and abroad.

Works Cited:
Author (2009). International education policies and the boundaries of global citizenship in the US. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41(2), 269-290.

Tamtik, M., Trilokekar, R. D., & Jones, G. A. (Eds.). (2020). International education as public policy in Canada. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP.

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the Asia Society (2010). Putting the World into World-Class Education: State Innovations and Opportunities. Retrieved Online.

Author

• Christopher Joseph Frey, Bowling Green State University