New York and Los Angeles pledge to improve education provision for bilingual students

New York and Los Angelels have both announced plans to improve instruction and services for EAL learners or ELLs (English-language learners) as they are called in the United States. Both cities have agreed to adopt changes to their programmes and services for bilingual learners. New York City has pledged to start 125 bilingual programs over the next three years and to communicate more effectively with parents of English learners. Schools must also improve their track record for assessing a new student’s language abilities to determine if they require special services.

In Los Angeles, school officials cooperated with the U.S. Department of Education to devise a plan to overhaul its master plan for serving English learners—an agreement that ends an 18-month-old enforcement action by the Education Department’s office for civil rights to improve educational opportunities for ELLs in that district. The pact also requires the Los Angeles district to target more resources and academic opportunities to its African-American students.

According to the National Council of English Language Acquisition, the number of ELLsin public schools nationally rose from 3.5 million students during the 1997-98 school year to 5.3 million in 2008-2009. Los Angeles found that the vast majority of English learners in middle and high school continued to struggle academically even after being deemed proficient in English. Plans include recruiting certified bilingual and English-as-a-second-language, or ESL, teachers. A shortage of specialists has limited their ability to provide required language services to growing numbers of ELLs.