Bilingual Teacher Pipeline
Every dual language learner/English learner (DLL/EL) in California should receive high-quality instruction and access to a full curriculum from highly-qualified educators with expertise in instruction for English learners from early childhood through post-secondary education. We remain fully committed to improving the preparation, compensation, and support for educators of DLLs/ELs. All certification programs, early childhood through 12th grade, should offer a bilingual option. Ensuring that our schools and districts have the highly-qualified bilingual educators will help meet the needs of ELs across the curriculum and support the expansion of bilingual programs to meet California’s goals towards multilingualism.
The Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Program (BTPDP) serves to increase the number of teachers who obtain a bilingual authorization. The establishment of BTPDP (2018), and its subsequent reauthorizations (2022), is critical for ensuring students can access educators who speak their home language.
Resources
State Policy Impact
A one-time funding of $5 million was approved for the Asian Language Bilingual Teacher Education Program Consortium. The funds would be allocated to the the California State University Asian Language Bilingual Teacher Education Program Consortium, an alliance among 10 California State universities that have come together to work to increase the number of accredited bilingual teachers in six Asian current languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Hmong, Korean and Vietnamese. The grant would be allocated over a four-year period. This consortium will build the infrastructure needed to train, recruit and support aspiring Asian language teachers who are looking to earn the credentials to be able to enter our school as well as providing financial support for the candidates in the program.
Allocates 20 million dollars to reinstate the Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Program to increase the number of bilingual authorized teachers.
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February 2024 Legislative Update
February marks the bill introduction deadline for the legislature with 2,124 bills introduced by both houses. In this month of love and hearts, it’s not looking rosie for the state’s […]
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Bridging California’s Bilingual Teacher Gap in Early Childhood Education
We are pleased to introduce our inaugural policy brief in our series on Dual Language Learners—a thorough examination of the shortage of bilingual early childhood educators in California. Given that 60% of young children […]
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What Governor Newsom’s 2024 Budget Proposal Means for English Learners
Yesterday, Governor Newsom presented his proposed state budget that includes a $291.5 billion spending plan and an expected $37.86 billion shortfall. The overall theme of the press conference was more hopeful than […]