Rep. Alonzo: Thoughts on Challenges Impacting Bilingual Education

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas One of the biggest challenges in bilingual education is that teachers often run the bilingual education program without professional training. The teachers without professional training must rely on their personal experience and ideas of how to educate children participating in a bilingual education program. This lack of teacher training falls back on what seems to be the greatest issue in bilingual education adequate funding and human resources. The American Association of Employment in Education has found a considerable shortage in bilingual education teachers (4.48 on a 5-point scale) not only in states that have historically large numbers of immigrants but more critically in states that previously were less likely to have large immigrant populations. Texas is no stranger to this shortage and consistently reports over a 40 percent deficiency in fully certified bilingual or ESL teachers. The overarching issue of achievement gaps between LEP students and their counterparts cannot be closed if the public school system cannot provide them with qualified instructors. Numerous reasons have been cited for the teacher shortage including a rise in school enrollments; changing student demographics; a high demand for minority teachers; and low salaries. The Texas State Board of Education can improve the quality of its bilingual education and ESL teachers as well as a schools administration by emphasizing participation in training that is devoted to bilingual education techniques issues and strategies.