69´«Ă˝

English Learners

The English Learner Population Is Growing. Is Teacher Training Keeping Pace?

By Ileana Najarro — February 21, 2023 5 min read
A multiracial group of elementary school students sitting at a table in a classroom.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

English learners are one of the fastest growing student populations in the country, yet the number of specialized educators for them is lagging behind.

The number of certified licensed English learner instructors decreased by about 10.4 percent between the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years, according to the latest federal data available. The national English learner population grew by 2.6 percent in the same time period.

“It just is a huge disconnect in terms of what we’re seeing with our student demographics and looking at projections of what’s to come,” said Diane Staehr Fenner, president and founder of SupportEd, a consulting firm focused on English learners’ education.

And teachers generally seem to feel they are not fully prepared to best support English learners. In February, Education Week posted an unscientific poll asking teachers: Do you feel like you have enough training to teach English learners? Of the 1,248 responses, 39 percent said yes, and 61 percent said no.

While English learners typically work with specialized instructors for their language development, many spend most of their school days in classrooms with non-English learner peers. It’s why researchers and educators alike call for broader training for all teachers and school leaders in best practices for supporting English learners—especially with national gaps in specialized English learner staffers.

“We all need to be trained in working and sharing the responsibility and the joy,” Staehr Fenner said.

Policy change is needed

At the federal level, there have recently been financial investments in expanding educator training for working with English learners.

In October, the U.S. Department of Education awarded nearly $120 million in professional development grants for improving instruction for English learners. In February, the department awarded over $18 million in grants for teacher-preparation programs for teachers of color, and projects geared toward diversifying the national teacher pipeline. Winning projects included an emphasis on preparing more bilingual and multilingual educators.

But federal grants are only one part of the equation. States—which have greater control over enacting English learner policies—could require training in best practices for English learners as part of teacher recertification, Staehr Fenner said. They could make it flexible for educators by covering costs for training.

Preservice training for all teachers should also incorporate best practices for English learners, she added.

But at the national level, it’s a patchwork of requirements for general education or content-area teachers.

In a , SupportEd found that only four states at the time had some type of English learner professional development requirement for recertification: Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York.

California, Florida, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas were among the states that required districts to offer English learner professional development, though not as a requirement for individual teachers’ recertification, the study also found.

States also need to focus on building up staffing for English learner instructors.

That can be done by offering competitive compensation for teachers with specialized language skills, and investing in grow-your-own teacher programs specifically for this type of instruction, Staehr Fenner said.

69´«Ă˝ set to graduate with a Seal of Biliteracy, for instance, can receive concurrent college credit while in high school to one day become English as a second language teachers.

So far, Staehr Fenner has seen the most investment in educator preparation for supporting English learners at the district level, spearheaded by superintendents and English learner department heads committed to equitable education for their students. These cases, however, are often outliers in the national landscape, she said.

The Russellville City schools district in Alabama, for instance, used its federal pandemic relief funds to hire bilingual aides as part of its efforts to improve the quality of education for a student population that is now a quarter of the whole district.

English Learners Project Once Resistant, An Alabama Town Now Sees Its English Learners as Its Future
What happened when a school district changed its culture and invested in young English learner supports?
12 min read

Change is happening, but in outlier districts

Norwalk Public 69´«Ă˝, in Connecticut, is another example.

When Alexandra Estrella started as superintendent of the Norwalk district in 2020, she had to turn around low graduation rates for the district’s growing English learner population.

To do this, she led a comprehensive review of district policies and programs, a student roundtable, and a listening tour within her first year. She and her educators spent half a semester studying what English learners went through as students, and what they needed, especially as they navigated the coronavirus pandemic. Based on this review, district leaders then shifted programming to meet those needs.

That included offering English learners and other students receiving specialized services the option to attend school in person early in the pandemic to avoid disruption of their services. That move ensured, for example, that English learners had access to in-person conversations in English for their language development. The district also offered afternoon and evening classes for older English learners who had jobs to support their families.

Longer term, Estrella restructured professional development in the district by requiring school leaders to immerse themselves in best practices for English learners, followed by teachers, and English learner instructors who were also trained as professional development leaders in the district. Estrella also added coaches and interventionists at every school in the district so that teachers always had somebody to lean on for support in the classroom.

That way the message was clear that English learners’ success was not solely in the hands of the district’s English as a second language staff.

“I firmly believe that it first starts with the leadership. The leadership needs to know what it needs to look like and feel like in order to be able to effectively execute it,” Estrella said.

Much of the restructuring aimed to shift deficit mindsets some educators might have had around English learners’ abilities.

“A lot of times people come from the mindset that just because the child doesn’t know the language at the time that they are an empty vessel,” she said. “When in reality our children, even when they have limited education and educational experiences, they bring a wealth of knowledge that will help them advance within their learning experience.”

The restructuring and investments have so far paid off with a 10 percent growth in the number of English learner graduates within a year of programming shifts, Estrella said. But there’s still work to do to make sure every student is able to academically and linguistically succeed, and that’s all accomplished first by making systemic changes.

“A system produces the outcomes that it’s intended to produce,” Estrella said.

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69´«Ă˝
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

English Learners Opinion Teacher Tips for Supporting English Learners
69´«Ă˝' stress over learning a new language in a new environment can affect their academic success. Proper support can ease that.
11 min read
Conceptual illustration of classroom conversations and fragmented education elements coming together to form a cohesive picture of a book of classroom knowledge.
Sonia Pulido for Education Week
English Learners Explainer Undocumented 69´«Ă˝ Have the Right to a Free Education. This Is Why
A landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling protected undocumented students' access to free public education. Some lawmakers seek to overturn it.
8 min read
69´«Ă˝ at Valencia Newcomer School wait to change classes Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in Phoenix. Children from around the world are learning the English skills and American classroom customs they need to succeed at so-called newcomer schools. Valencia Newcomer School in Phoenix is among a handful of such public schools in the United States dedicated exclusively to helping some of the thousands of children who arrive in the country annually.
69´«Ă˝ at Valencia Newcomer School wait to change classes Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, in Phoenix. Children from around the world are learning the English skills and American classroom customs they need to succeed at so-called newcomer schools. Under a 1982 Supreme Court precedent, public schools can't charge tuition to children who are new arrivals in the United States.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
English Learners English Learners With Disabilities: The Rules 69´«Ă˝ Have to Follow
69´«Ă˝ can't force English learners with disabilities to choose between special ed. and language instruction—and other tips from OCR.
4 min read
Photo of teacher and blind student using braille slate.
E+
English Learners Q&A A Teacher Makes the Case for Using AI With English Learners
Sarah Said teaches her high school English learners how to responsibly use AI tools for language learning.
4 min read
Image of the concept of AI integrated into the classroom.
Stephanie Shafer for Education Week