English language learning rollbacks could impact Hispanic students’ academic success

PHOENIX — Hispanic students make up 45% of Arizona’s K–12 population.

But recent federal rollbacks may affect how many of these students are taught. In August, the U.S. Department of Education rescinded a 2015 guide that helped schools support English learners.

That action has frustrated educators like Anaiis Ballesteros of ALL In Education, a Latino public education advocacy group.

“This is just adding some additional uncertainty and frustration for educators,” Ballesteros told KTAR News 92.3 FM.

How did Donald Trump change English language learning?

The change stems from an executive order President Donald Trump signed earlier this year, which revoked President Bill Clinton’s 2000 directive on language access.

That directive laid the groundwork for the 2015 “Dear Colleague” letter, which outlined schools’ legal obligations under civil rights law.

According to Education Week, the Education Department said the letter was rescinded because it no longer aligned with the administration’s priorities. This removed a key resource that educators had relied on for nearly a decade.

Ballesteros said the guide included assessments, communication outlines and suggestions for carrying out English language learning programming in a way that minimized segregation among students.

“Educators … use that as a road map for how to support English learners,” she said.

How will this affect the academic success of Hispanic students?

The rollbacks are made more complicated because of Arizona’s Proposition 203, a voter-approved piece of legislation from 2000 that mandates English-only instruction in the classroom.

However, this mandate is not being implemented in many districts. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne to ask the Arizona Supreme Court to let him enforce the rule.

If the Supreme Court grants his wish, the academic success of Hispanic students could be in peril, Ballesteros said.

“Students are already achieving at such low rates,” she said. “This will drastically impact them even further.”

According to the Arizona Education Progress Meter, Hispanic and Latino students are a full 10 percentage points below the average Arizona student in third-grade reading and eighth-grade math.

On top of that, only 55% of Arizona’s English learners graduate high school, according to the Office of English Language Acquisition.

What can Arizona parents do to empower Hispanic students?

Ballesteros added that parents should be aware of their children’s educational rights to help them stay on track academically, even when school guidelines present challenges.

“Everybody has rights: rights to advocate, rights to understand what the rights of their students are, to show up at schools and ask, ‘What are your policies on English learners? How are you supporting them? What research sources do you have?'” Ballesteros said.

For other students, being bilingual is treated as an asset, but for the Latino population, they are not given the same status, Ballesteros said.

“We are essentially not engaging this population that brings a big asset already to our communities and to our civic health as a state and as a country,” she said. “We’re basically telling them that this asset that they bring isn’t worth it for them, but it is for other students.”

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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