Lead Author: Kimberly Sanchez, Parent Institute for Quality Education
This is part two of a four-part blog series covering families’ perspectives on supporting Multilingual Learners and Dual Language programs. This piece was written by Kimberly Sanchez, Director of Policy and Partnerships, Parent Institute for Quality Education.
This blog installment highlights what we’re hearing from families: that they strongly support Dual Language (DL) programs. Informed by statewide survey data and research, this blog highlights family support and the persistent gaps in access to DL programs that education leaders must work to address.
Listening to Families During a Time of Crisis
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools in the spring of 2020, the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) recognized the urgent need to remain systematically connected to families. Maintaining these connections was essential not only to ensure families received timely support, but also to elevate their experiences and challenges to policymakers and education leaders who were navigating unprecedented disruptions.
In response, PIQE began conducting annual statewide surveys to better understand families’ access to essential resources, their top areas of concern, and how schools and systems could more effectively support their children’s learning. These surveys, known as the Family Needs Assessments have since become a critical source of insight into family priorities and decision-making across California, for advocates, practitioners, and policymakers alike.
Strong Family Support for Dual Language programs
In the Spring of 2024, PIQE contacted over 1,200 families via phone interviews to inform our annual Family Needs Assessment. Families were asked questions about their access to resources, areas of concern, support needs, and experiences with absenteeism. To gain a fuller picture of families’ needs, they were also asked about their involvement in school decision-making, participation in optional learning recovery and enrichment programs, access to assessments for learning differences, and experiences with DL programs.
We found that the overwhelming majority of families, 84%, expressed interest in DL programs. Meanwhile, close to half of those surveyed noted that their children were already enrolled in these programs. These data points reflect strong interest, and thoughtful family decision-making to enroll their children in programs that value students’ language development and support their academic success. It’s important to note that 70% of the surveyed families reported that their children are identified as English learners. Conversely, among the families not enrolled in DL programs, a notable portion shared they were unfamiliar with these programs. This indicates probable information gaps for families. Awareness of program options impacts access, as families who lack information about dual language immersion program opportunities or their benefits may not enroll their children.
Local Findings Reflect a Broader Pattern
In the Fall of 2025, PIQE’s Director of Research, Dr. Monique Escobedo, co-authored a report titled What Families Want: New Data on Public Demand for Bilingual Education in collaboration with The Century Foundation. The report draws on surveys of 1,000 families, and in-depth conversations with parents across diverse communities, and presents new survey and focus-group data indicating strong interest among families for bilingual and dual language education, and explores implications for access, equity, and policy in public schools.
Dual Language programs fall under the broader category of bilingual education, which is defined as teaching and learning in two languages. PIQE’s Family Needs Assessment specifically reported on DL programs while The Century Foundation’s report broadly reported on bilingual education.
The report highlights that while demand for bilingual programs is high, availability is uneven. Access to bilingual education is shaped by factors such as school resources, district priorities, and local demographics, meaning many families who want bilingual programs may not get the opportunity to enroll their children in them. For example, only about 10% of English learners in California were enrolled in bilingual programs in the 2023–24 school year, despite strong family interest.
Geography also plays a role—programs are often limited to certain neighborhoods or schools, and families outside these areas may face lotteries, waitlists, or other barriers.
Access to these programs remains inequitable, with many families facing significant barriers that limit participation, and contribute to ongoing inequities in who gets to benefit from dual language education. Families with higher education and income levels are often able to secure enrollment for their children. In some cases, their demand for access can even displace English learners and their families from bilingual or dual language programs, leaving English learners without meaningful opportunities to sustain and develop their home languages. High demand from English-dominant families is often tied to sustained pressure from local gentrification trends.
Across the two separate studies, the data consistently shows that bilingual education is a priority for the majority of caregivers sampled. The report highlights a persistent gap between family demand and system-level supply, an issue that corroborates PIQE’s findings related to DLLs and raises important questions for education leaders about access, equity, and long-term planning.
Conclusion
A consistent theme persists across PIQE’s Family Needs Assessments, the DLL Master Plan Advocates listening sessions, and the external research by The Century Foundation: families across California strongly support bilingualism, value Dual Language programs, and want an education system that reflects and builds upon their children’s linguistic strengths.
For education leaders and policymakers, the question is no longer whether families support bilingual education, but whether systems are prepared to respond. Expanding access to DL programs is a direct response to what families are asking for. As this blog series continues, centering family voices will remain essential to shaping policies that advance equity and opportunity for Multilingual Learners.
Stay engaged by exploring the rest of our collaborative blog series and visit the DLL Master Plan Advocates to learn more about supporting DLLs.
Footnotes
- Parent Institute for Quality Education. (2024). Family Needs Assessment Spring 2024. In https://www.piqe.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Family-Needs-Assessmen-Spring-2025-8.14.25.pdf.
- The Century Foundation. (2024). What Families Want: New Data on Public Demand for Bilingual Education. https://production tcf.imgix.net/app/uploads/2025/11/06161658/What-Families-Want.pdf