When Adriana Cervantes-González started school in California as a child, it was at a time when state policy was determined to have all students learning English proficient in the language within one year. That meant that bilingual education was ruled out, in favor of English immersion.
As a kindergartener who only spoke Spanish, Cervantes-González had a part-time bilingual aide in her classroom who otherwise only spoke English.
“She was only there two days a week at that time. Near 227 wasBut the other days my stomach hurt,” Cervantes-González recalls, “because I knew those were the days when Mrs. Alcántara was not in the classroom.”
Cervantes-González is now program director for the California Teacher Career Center, a public agency charged with increasing the pool of qualified teacher candidates in the Golden State. That includes bilingual teachers, who are in high demand across the country.
In seven states, the need for bilingual education teachers is especially urgent. Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Texas and Wisconsin have reported shortages of bilingual teachers during the 2023-24 academic year, according to federal data. Eighteen other states and the District of Columbia have been struggling to find enough people to teach English as a second language.
Experts say the shortage of bilingual education teachers in the United States is due to a lack of role models, inaccessible and unaffordable higher education teacher training programs, and weak academic language skills among aspiring educators. Below is how leaders at the California Teacher Career Center are taking steps to overcome those obstacles—steps that could work in other states, too.
Where is the growth happening?
While California and Texas have the largest number of English learners in public schools (perhaps not surprising given their proximity to Mexico), the states experiencing the greatest growth among school-age English learners are primarily located outside the Southwest. From 2000 to 2020, Delaware saw the largest increase in its percentage of English learners, followed by Maryland and Virginia.
Over the 20-year span, the number of states reporting a shortage of bilingual teachers increased from seven to 11. States reporting a shortage of ESL teachers increased from 12 to 28.
Of the eight states with the fastest English learner growth, Delaware, Maryland, Texas, Illinois and Rhode Island have continued to report shortages of bilingual education teachers, English as a second language teachers, or both during the 2023-24 school year.
What barriers persist?
With constant growth in both the number of English learners and the need for bilingual teachers, what stands in the way of getting enough qualified teachers in bilingual classrooms?
Marvin López is executive director of the California Teacher Career Center, which plans to open a rural bilingual teacher residency program in 2025. He says the challenges to increasing the pipeline of bilingual teachers are multifaceted.
In California, where 56 percent Of public school students are Latino, many simply did not have teachers who could serve as role models, Lopez says. The Golden State is home to more than 1 million English learners, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
“For me, as an EL student, having someone in the classroom who not only looks like you, but who you can also relate to and understand some of the barriers you are going through, certainly impacted me and encouraged me to continue my education.” ” Lopez says of her own experience growing up in California as an English major, “because not only did I have a teacher, but I also had an advisor, someone who could give me guidance, (someone) who I could easily approach.”
For bilingual Californians who are products of the “English-only” school era, a career in bilingual education is an opportunity to reframe their dual-language skills as an asset, Cervantes-González says.
“We have a lot of bilingual students who simply don't imagine themselves as bilingual teachers, and that's where bilingual education has the opportunity to expand the knowledge and assets that students have,” says Cervantes-González, “for them to see.” “. as an opportunity and not a barrier to apply their language in a school environment.”
For some, a traditional four-year degree is not an economically viable path to teaching, López adds, while the state's history of focusing on English-only education has reduced the pool of Spanish-dominant Californians. Mandatory English immersion was not repealed in California until 2016.
Geography is another difficulty for potential bilingual educators. The center's next teacher residency will be based in Tulare County, which makes up the southern part of the state's Central Valley region. About half of its 473,000 residents speak a language other than English at home, according to the U.S. Census. data, and 67 percent are Hispanic. The closest universities to the rural area are approximately 40 and 70 miles away, Cervantes-González says, putting a traditional four-year teaching degree out of reach for those who cannot relocate.
“One of the challenges is accessibility to those places, and that is why we brought (the residence) to the Central Valley,” says López. “We developed those programs so we can continue to grow that portfolio.”
The California Teacher Career Center's bilingual residency program will be a combination of professional training classes and hands-on experience, where student-teachers participating in the year-long residency will co-teach with a mentor and gradually increase their classroom responsibilities. .
In addition to noble initiatives like the bilingual teacher residency program, Cervantes-González says growing the pipeline includes improving outreach to potential teacher candidates. That could mean helping a prospective residency student understand the application process or talking to a high school student about becoming a teacher during a career day.
“In our region that we serve here in California, in terms of educational attainment, it's still a challenge, so I think definitely one opportunity to mitigate that is to share, 'Here's how you can prepare to be a bilingual teacher.'” Cervantes González says. “The center offers a lot of support to candidates that they may not yet know exists, so we will communicate with them early on to do so. Take a town; “It takes a village.”
