Though California and Texas serve similarly sized populations of English learners (ELs) in K-12, the states have their own educational approaches that lead to substantially different outcomes in how students grow both linguistically and academically, according to data.
The Century Foundation’s (TCF) recent report, Making California Public Schools Better for English Learners: Lessons from Texas, explores how the Golden State could benefit from implementing some of the Lone Star State’s practices, as their EL students tend to fare better.
“In recent years, it’s become clear that leaders in California and Texas have come to a shared conclusion: that bilingual and dual-language instruction is good for their EL students. This makes sense, given that research continues to show that ELs do best in schools that affirm and support their bilingual development,” the report reads. “However, the two states take different approaches to supporting ELs’ access to bilingual learning in their public education systems.
“Texas has taken a systemic and broadly funded approach to bilingual education expansion, while California has used a mostly optional and narrow, patchwork funding approach,” it continues.
In 2022–23, about 19 percent of K-12 students in California were ELs compared to 21 percent in Texas. While California refers to the student group as ELs (the federally recognized term), Texas has opted to use the phrase “emergent bilinguals.”
“This symbolic distinction translates to substantive differences in how ELs in each state do linguistically and academically — Texas has invested dramatically more resources to support its students’ bilingualism across its entire K–12 system, enrolling a larger percentage of its EL students — more than twice as many as California does — in bilingual and dual-language programs,” the report states. “By contrast, California has offered sporadic grant programs and non-binding frameworks.”
Until a 2016 ballot initiative was approved by voters, California had an almost two-decade long ban on bilingual education, TCF notes. The report indicates that California lags Texas on the matter due to policy choices that have since occurred, such as a lack of significant systemic resources though programs like the Seal of Biliteracy have seen success.
Texas has higher percentages of EL students in multilingual education settings, which research shows helps them better reach English proficiency over time.
The percentage of ELs achieving English proficiency has consistently been higher in Texas in recent years, the most recent of which being 2022–23 with a rate of 22 percent versus 17 percent in California.
“Research also shows that EL students in multilingual education settings have better academic outcomes than ELs in English-only settings. Again, Texas’ experience with a systemic commitment to bilingualism is tracking those findings,” according to the report. “A comparison of more than a decade of NAEP scores shows that Texas’ ELs consistently outperformed California’s ELs in both math and reading and at fourth and eighth. Further, while achievement gap analysis comparing ELs to non-ELs should be analyzed with caution, these gaps are substantially larger in California than they are in Texas.”
The report asserts that to meaningfully enhance learning opportunities, California may consider expanding access to bilingual and/or dual language immersion programs. To do this, the state would need to:
- Collect and publish data on bilingual offerings at the district and state levels
- Offer systemic resources to boost new bilingual or dual-language immersion programming (beyond piecemeal competitive grants, the report notes)
- Allocate more funding for alternative and traditional bilingual teacher training pathways
- Support bilingual teacher candidates by reforming training and licensure rules
Read the full report here.
