The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Education Insights Center (EdInsights) or the California Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP).
As the population of multilingual learners identified as English learners (ELs) grows in the US, education leaders must work to accommodate the increasingly complex needs of these students. Nationwide, 10.4% (5.1 million) students were classified as EL in 2019, up from 9.2% (4.5 million) in Fall 2010. The state of California has the largest EL student population in the nation at 19.1%. Multilingual learners are often subject to a deficit orientation in schools that focuses on what they are assumed to lack rather than the assets that they bring from their multiple languages and cultures. The term English Learner itself assumes that racialized multilingual learners are lacking in their ability to speak and understand English. Current and future multilingual learners face many challenges posed by a slew of structural imbalances as well as this deficit framing — such as economic hardship, segregation, interrupted schooling, under-resourced schools, lack of ESL/bilingual certified teachers and low expectations. While these structural factors and deficit perspectives, among others, are shown to largely influence the educational attainment of these students negatively, the same data has made the importance of present and effective education leaders in driving positive outcomes all the more apparent. In fact, its importance is ranked second only to that of teachers (Bryk et al., 2010; Davis & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Hallinger, 2011; Henderson, 2015; Hoy & Miskel, 2007; Louis et al., 2010), with some research finding that leadership quality surpasses teacher quality in importance (see also Henderson, 2015).
Currently, little is known about how the work of education leaders is informed by the needs of multilingual learners. In order to explore this topic, I spoke with 25 school and district leaders at the elementary, middle, and high school level as well as current educational administration students in the Central Coast of California. Respondents were recruited from a variety of school and district sites, including traditional public, charter, parochial, and virtual schools. Nine participants were identified as ELs when they were in school and sixteen consider themselves to be multilingual; 14 identify as White, 10 as Latine, and 1 as mixed race (Asian and Latine). I use pseudonyms below to refer to participants.
Preliminary findings suggest that current and aspiring education leaders’ identities inform their approach to leadership in powerful ways. Leaders who were identified as ELs growing up often spoke of somewhat negative experiences in school, reflective of deficit perspectives. For example, as leaders they want to “connect with students so they know that I understand what they’re going through [with] their experiences,” because those same leaders remember the effects of that missing connection when they were in school.
They also discussed challenges they faced with teachers who were not trained to work with multilingual learners and often brought a deficit approach to their work. One leader I spoke with, Sara, recalled being put into the lowest level reading group every year until it was discovered that she had a learning disability. Sara did not truly feel comfortable in school until she went to college where “the teachers didn’t know me, so I could work as hard as I want and put all my strength and energy into the topics that I wanted to study.” Based on this experience, she shared that “I wanted to be a [leader] because I wanted to do it another way,” and she has focused her work around better supporting the newer generations of multilingual learners.
Further, a district leader, Natalia, spoke of her fear of asking for help growing up and how that experience has influenced her focus on utilizing tutoring and small group instruction in district programming. Another leader, Maria, who was identified as an EL felt that she “was not equipped with the language and vocabulary” she needed in middle school, but at the same time she “always admired” her teachers because they were “nurturing” in their approach. Now, in her current role, she focuses on training teachers to be nurturing and to provide rigorous instruction that is developmentally appropriate.
Similarly, Isabella, spoke of how her experience as an adult EL influenced her work with her students: “I was able to empathize with my students because I was an EL myself even though I have never been through the same hardships as them.” She is currently developing the first Dual Immersion program in her district.
A leader in the county office, Daniela, spoke of how she uses her experiences to engage more authentically with parents:
I understand what it means to be an EL. I understand what it means to be a migrant student and to have my parents working in the fields for very long hours, so I try to create activities that are fun and appropriate for parents and that [students] can take home and share with them.
She recalled a lesson she did around the recent solar eclipse in which she shared pictures of her young students viewing the eclipse safely with the appropriate glasses and sent the glasses home so their parents could try them too.
The findings above point to the important role that education leaders’ own experiences and identities can play in informing the approach they take to supporting multilingual students. While many of them experienced deficit perspectives in their own schooling experiences, they are actively implementing affirming practices in their current leadership roles in order to create a more supportive environment for their students. Interestingly, these same leaders did not necessarily feel that their identities were always seen as a resource in their educational administration credential programs. They also had not had the opportunity to participate in professional learning focused specifically on the needs of multilingual learners even though they strongly felt the need for it. Taken together, these findings suggest that it is critical that we incorporate candidates’ diverse identities and experiences as well as the needs of multilingual learners into our educational administration coursework and professional learning in order to create a more equitable and asset-based system for these students and families in California.
This research was conducted with the support of graduate research assistants Christina Sierra-Jones and Kalah Larison Ishimaru.