Protect English learners in nation’s schools

The Trump administration’s recent decision to dissolve the US Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition has received little public attention. But for more than 5 million English learners in America’s public schools, the consequences could be life-altering, according to the Tribune News Service.

The Office of English Language Acquisition, known as OELA, is not a symbolic office or bureaucratic accessory. Congress established its existence under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 because the education of multilingual learners depends on sustained federal leadership, deep educational expertise and meaningful civil rights accountability.

OELA’s director reports directly to the secretary of education for a reason: Serving English learners is not peripheral to public education. It is a core federal responsibility. Now that office is being eliminated and its experts fired or dispersed to other areas.

Since Education Secretary Linda McMahon was appointed by President Donald Trump last year, the Department of Education has weakened its Office for Civil Rights, rescinded longstanding federal guidance protecting multilingual learners, frozen funding for English learners and transferred oversight responsibilities through interagency agreements involving the Department of Labor.

Together these actions have hollowed out the federal infrastructures schools rely on to effectively serve multilingual students. That matters because civil rights protections are only as strong as the institutions charged with protecting them. Under Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, states and school districts are legally required to provide English learners meaningful access to education. These protections emerged from decades of advocacy for multilingual students, who were too often segregated, underserved or denied access to learning opportunities in public schools.

Congress established OELA to prevent that history from repeating itself. Today, English learners make up roughly one in 10 public school students nationwide. Most of these students are US citizens. They live in urban, suburban, rural and small-town communities in every state. Regardless of citizenship status, they are not a marginal population or a niche constituency. Multilingual students are central to the future of American public education and its economy.

Effectively serving multilingual learners requires expertise and coordination that, if scattered across agencies or unrelated departments, will have significant consequences. OELA historically housed career staff with deep knowledge of language acquisition, bilingual education, teacher preparation, federal compliance and multilingual learner assessment. School systems across the country rely on experienced federal staff to navigate funding requirements, support bilingual programming and sustain multilingual educator pipelines.

As an educator and researcher in California, I have seen firsthand how fragile support systems for multilingual learners already prevail in local schools in rural and urban schools. Districts face persistent shortages of bilingual and multilingual educators, especially rural and urban high poverty communities.

Teacher preparation programs rely on federal grants and technical assistance to strengthen pathways into the profession. Families depend on schools not only for academic support, but also for translation, communication and access to public institutions that too frequently feel inaccessible.

Eliminating OLEA will not make schools or the federal government more efficient. It just leaves students with fewer protections and districts with less support, as it jeopardizes funding and accountability mechanisms schools and families depend on to meet student needs.

The administration has defended these moves as efforts to streamline government or align education more closely with workforce priorities. But multilingual education is not merely workforce preparation. It is about increasing educational access, teacher preparation, civic participation and equal opportunity.