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From https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/12/20/supporting-english-learners-and-treating-bilingualism-as-an-asset/

In a December 20 memo, Kenji Hakuta and Ray Pecheone write, “The nation’s economic and civic future depends on the success of its students who are “English Learners” (ELs), mostly immigrants and children of immigrants. … Attention to these students has moved from periphery to the center as their numbers have increased—about one in ten students are ELs and one in five come from homes where another language is spoken. They are also more widely distributed across the nation, with rapid growth in states not commonly considered points of immigrant entry such as Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Without appropriate educational supports, ELs are less likely than their peers to succeed in school and are more likely to drop out.”

Their recommendations include the following:

•    Develop policy that further promotes the integration of English learning and academic content in instruction, assessment, and accountability.
•    Transform Title III into a national language policy that promotes bilingualism and recognizes that bilingualism is an individual and societal asset.
•    Require any new innovations to proceed only with consideration of ELs from the start, not as an afterthought. Provide incentives, guidance, and capacity building for states to fully include such opportunities for ELs in a proactive manner.
•    Expand the National Professional Development program within Title III to build national teacher capacity to support this work.
•    Convene a policy summit and commission a policy brief for stakeholders to look at EL classification and definition procedures across states, and to move beyond the EL label to differentiate the needs of subgroups and individuals.

Read the memo at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/12/20/supporting-english-learners-and-treating-bilingualism-as-an-asset/