Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) recent Emergent Bilingual Strategic Plan, required by the 87th Legislature’s SB 560, provides a wealth of new data regarding Emergent Bilingual students and education in Texas, as well as key stakeholder recommendations for TEA and the Legislature. Below is a brief summary of the Plan and a list of bills filed in the 2023 session that align with the recommendations of the State Strategic Plan.

Emergent Bilingual students make up a significant portion of the Texas public school population, and ensuring they achieve academic success is good for Texas.

Emergent Bilingual students (formerly known as English Learners), whose home language is a language other than English, have always made up a significant portion of the Texas public school population. Currently, Emergent Bilingual students make up 20 percent of the Texas student population. Texas and California consistently serve the highest percentages of Emergent Bilingual students in the country.

To ensure more Texas children are successful inside and outside the classroom, Texans Care for Children, along with various partners and stakeholders, launched the Early Childhood English Learner Initiative in early 2020. Our goals were to ensure more Emergent Bilingual students become strong readers by third grade, become fluent and literate in both English and their home language, and learn in settings where educators, principals, child care directors, and parents have the tools they need to support them during this pivotal period of brain development.

In 2021, we worked with our partners, particularly the Intercultural Development and Research Association, to help lawmakers pass four important bills recommended in our Initiative’s Policy Roadmap. One of the bills passed during the 87th session, SB 560 by Senator Lucio, directed TEA to develop a state strategic plan to strengthen bilingual education, particularly for our youngest learners.

In January, TEA released the Emergent Bilingual Strategic Plan. The Plan includes useful new data, an excellent summary of stakeholder suggestions, as well as several different planned agency strategies and legislative recommendations for this session. The Plan should provide legislators with new urgency and direction on how they can support Emergent Bilingual students across the state. We look forward to working with TEA, the Legislature, and other Texans to pursue the plan’s key strategies and recommendations.

The state’s Strategic Plan for Emergent Bilingual Students provides new data that highlight challenges and opportunities for the Legislature to address this session.

For example, the plan found:

During the 2021-2022 school year, 1.1 million Texas public school students, pre-k through 12th grade, were identified as Emergent Bilingual, encompassing over 70 languages. Spanish speakers make up 92 percent of these students.

While Emergent Bilingual students make up a significant portion of Texas students (over 20 percent), they have lower graduation rates and test scores than all students. There has been a slight increase in graduation rates over the last five years, but the gap is still significant. Emergent Bilingual students currently have only a 78 percent graduation rate, significantly worse than the state average of approximately 90 percent.

Emergent Bilingual students also face a gap in terms of readiness for life and the workforce after high school. In 2020, TEA found that 63 percent of all graduating Texas students were found to be ready for college, a career, or the military. In comparison, only approximately 45 percent of Emergent Bilingual students were considered prepared by the state’s measure.

The Plan contains stakeholder recommendations about what the state can do to better support Emergent Bilingual students.

TEA’s Plan identified the following priorities from over 4,500 stakeholders for policymakers to address this legislative session and beyond:

“Increase the number of certified bilingual teachers in Texas”: There are numerous financial and administrative barriers for educators seeking to become certified bilingual teachers. Educators pursuing a bilingual certification must complete multiple costly assessments. Teachers are also required to retake the entire exam if they fail only one of the domains. The Plan has recommendations to reduce the number of exams required and adjust requirements for the exams so that candidates would only retest on the domains they did not master.

“Increase the number of dual language immersion (DLI) programs”: While TEA has reported an increase in the number of Emergent Bilingual students participating in DLI programs, only 21 percent of the nearly 1.2 million Emergent Bilingual students are participating in DLI programs. After reviewing longitudinal academic research, TEA has determined Emergent Bilingual students showed, on average, “higher academic outcomes when served through DLI programs when compared to peers served in other language programs.” With such a low percentage of students being served in DLI programs, increasing the number of those programs would ensure more Emergent Bilingual students are served in an environment where they are most likely to succeed.

“Educate families and educators on the benefits of bilingualism”: There is a widespread misconception about language acquisition and the benefits of learning both English and a home language. Some stakeholders shared that school districts struggle to fully engage families of Emergent Bilingual students and that there is a lack of understanding from educators on the benefits of bilingualism. Due to the large number of Emergent Bilingual students, educators are likely serving these students already. The Plan recommends requiring teachers to complete periodic training about the specific complexities of language acquisition and the benefits of bilingualism.

“Adopt a uniformed process for identifying Emergent Bilingual students and monitoring their bilingual learning with meaningful data sources”: While TEA has a uniform process for identifying Emergent Bilingual students, it lacks a uniform process for monitoring bilingual learning. Statewide monitoring of bilingual programs would enable TEA to track trends and outcomes of bilingualism and biliteracy. The ability to track trends and outcomes will enable TEA and the Legislature to track educational outcomes for Emergent Bilingual students and make recommendations for future program changes.

“Increase the number of bilingual and multilingual graduates”: Stakeholders cited in the Plan recommend TEA re-examining “the current State Board of Education rules regarding the performance acknowledgment for bilingualism and biliteracy.” Some school districts have implemented local seals of biliteracy on diplomas specifically for their DLI graduates who have accomplished this level of proficiency. These students are often overlooked for their accomplishments in achieving a high level of proficiency in bilingualism and biliteracy. However, the criteria for these local seals vary. Having TEA establish a state seal would align all districts under one criterion and acknowledge the hard work students have gone through to achieve their bilingual status.

Using the recommendations provided in the Emergent Bilingual Strategic Plan, Legislators filed a number of great bills to strengthen bilingual education this session.

This session, lawmakers have filed nearly 20 bills that align with the goals of the Emergent Bilingual Strategic Plan. Below are some of the most impactful bilingual education bills filed this session as a result of the SB 560 State Strategic Plan:

HB 1069 by Representative Bobby Guerra would establish a Texas State Seal of Bilingualism and Biliteracy that would recognize the high level of proficiency Texas high school graduates have achieved in speaking, writing, and reading both English and another language. The Seal would be added to the diploma of graduates who have achieved this level, and a designation would be included in their transcripts as well.

HB 2147 by Representative Josey Garcia would waive the fees for educators seeking a bilingual education certification. This would reduce the financial burden for teachers to obtain the certification they need to teach in dual language immersion programs.

HB 2164 by Representative Guerra would require TEA to create rules for a robust monitoring system for bilingual education and special language programs. The rules would require TEA to review programs to ensure they are meeting student needs, closing learning gaps, and engaging directly with the school districts offering programs to improve student outcomes.

SB 442 by Senator José Menéndez would raise the required percentage of funds used from the bilingual education allotment to support bilingual education programs from 55 percent to 90 percent. This would ensure that a majority of the funds are being used for their intended purpose of supporting Emergent Bilingual students.

In addition, HB 11 by Representative Harold Dutton, a designated priority bill of Speaker Dade Phelan, includes a provision to help teachers offset the costs of receiving Bilingual and Special Education Certifications.