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California鈥檚 audacious goal of having half of all K-12 students enrolled in bilingual education programs by 2030 has encountered one big stumbling block 鈥� there aren鈥檛 enough qualified bilingual teachers.

To help remedy that, a $10 million grant tucked in the state budget aims to help school districts recruit high school students as future bilingual teachers.

The funding in the that passed Thursday allows schools to partner with community colleges and universities to help students obtain a teaching credential and the bilingual authorization required to teach English learners.

Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, said the idea for the legislation came in part from school districts that communicated about their struggles to find qualified bilingual teachers.

鈥淚 kept hearing from districts and educators that bilingual students want to become teachers but run into a fragmented system with no clear path through high school, community college, university and credentialing,鈥� said Alvarez.

Researchers and coordinators of bilingual teacher preparation programs applaud the new grant program, but say it鈥檚 not nearly enough to meet the state鈥檚 needs.

鈥淕rant funding is important, but to me it just doesn鈥檛 feel like it鈥檚 going to be enough, given our size and also the size of our dreams and our ambitions as a state,鈥� said Lucrecia Santiba帽ez, a UCLA professor and author of two recent reports on bilingual teacher preparation.

The demand for bilingual teachers

California set a eight years ago to enroll half of all K-12 students in programs that help them become proficient in two or more languages by 2030.

But to reach that goal in the next four years, California will need an estimated 6,000 more bilingual teachers.

Several recent reports paint a picture of California鈥檚 bilingual teacher preparation as an unfinished quilt filled with gaps, rips and uneven stitching. Not enough bilingual teacher preparation programs exist, the reports found, and those that do exist are too far from the districts with the highest demand for bilingual teachers. 

In addition, bilingual students interested in becoming teachers are often stymied by the extra cost to finish both a teaching credential and a bilingual authorization 鈥� which requires several classes and 20 hours of student teaching, and can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000 on top of a college degree.

California has more than doubled the number of bilingual authorizations issued to teachers annually, from 617 in 2014-15 to a record 1,370 in 2023-24, according to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Yet Santiba帽ez and other UCLA researchers found that districts issue hundreds of emergency bilingual teacher permits each year for teachers who are not fully qualified to teach bilingual instruction.

The demand for bilingual teachers is not the same everywhere. While some districts have developed thriving dual language immersion programs and found ways to increase their numbers of bilingual teachers, many others lack the teachers and the funding to build these types of programs.

鈥淲e鈥檝e worked with districts that have had to close programs they started, and they just couldn鈥檛 staff it, and the parents were very disappointed, but the district didn鈥檛 want to have long-term subs running their dual language program, which is fair,鈥� said Anya Hurwitz, executive director of SEAL, a nonprofit organization that provides bilingual curriculum training for school districts. 鈥淭here are other districts that have built more robust relationships with teacher prep programs, but those are the early adopters or the outliers, not the norm.鈥�

Bilingual teaching deserts

The areas in California with the greatest need of bilingual teachers are also the areas where preparation programs are scarce or underfunded, UCLA鈥檚 Santiba帽ez said. Imperial County on the Mexico border, as well as Kings and Tulare counties in the Central Valley all have large English learner populations but have no preparation programs nearby.

鈥淲e know from the research that teachers and students in college who decide to become teachers like to stay close to where they live,鈥� said Santiba帽ez. 鈥淪o when the teacher preparation places aren鈥檛 really building capacity in a region that has tremendous growth of multilingual learners, it鈥檚 going to create that sort of access or needs gap.鈥�

Fewer established bilingual teachers in an area also means there are fewer teachers who can serve as mentors for student teachers, she said.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 necessarily see somebody from San Diego or even from L.A. making the two-hour trip to Indio or Coachella or Calexico or wherever to do those mentoring sessions. So it is important to grow the capacity where the capacity is needed,鈥� Santiba帽ez said.

Starting in high school

The new legislation responds to some of the researchers鈥� recommendations. For example, school districts will be given priority for grants if they have a high percentage of students who are English learners and not enough teacher preparation programs. 

Sparking interest in bilingual teaching among high schoolers, as the new grants would do, is crucial, said Adam Sawyer, director of the bilingual authorization program at California State University, Bakersfield. He said his university helps as many as 30 credentialed teachers get their bilingual authorization every year, and also has a bilingual teaching residency established with local elementary school districts that enlists about 10 to 15 student teachers per year.

Sawyer said CSU Bakersfield is working to establish an undergraduate pathway for prospective teachers and a dual-enrollment course for high schoolers, which will start next year. 

鈥淚 have always thought this would be a wonderful way to start tapping into high school juniors and seniors that may not have thought about bilingual teaching, but may start seeing that as, 鈥楬ey, that might be something I want to do!鈥� 鈥� Sawyer said.

鈥楢 drop of water in the sea鈥�

Still, the new funding, which will be distributed in grants of up to $600,000, is not a lot to address the need for bilingual teachers, educators say.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not a whole lot of money to do great things,鈥� said Eduardo Mu帽oz-Mu帽oz, San Jos茅 State University professor and co-author of a report by the California Association of Bilingual Teacher Education and Californians Together. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a drop of water in the sea.鈥�

Researchers have called for California to collect and publish data on the number of dual language immersion programs in the state, how many students they serve and the number of teachers with bilingual authorizations working in them.

More data would help the state pinpoint where to fund more bilingual teacher preparation programs, Mu帽oz-Mu帽oz said. 

Santiba帽ez and Mu帽oz-Mu帽oz also recommend the state offer more financial aid for students working on bilingual authorizations on top of their teaching credentials, a stipend for students to complete student teaching in a bilingual classroom, or bonuses for teachers who have bilingual authorizations, which not all districts provide.

鈥淭here鈥檚 just got to be an incentive,鈥� Santiba帽ez said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e a college student, right? You鈥檙e getting your teaching credential, and you speak Spanish because you鈥檙e a heritage language speaker. So getting a bilingual authorization seems like something like a slam dunk, right? But you have to pay for it.鈥�

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