Guest column: Promise of dual language programs in Illinois must be embraced

Chicago Tribune

09-05-2025

The auditorium was full of families, all eyes on the brightly lit stage. Alejandra nervously approached the podium. Only her hairbows were visible as she shared what speaking both Spanish and English meant to her, her family and her community in a clear, confident voice. She spoke of the importance of bilingualism in service of her family, in making new friends and in helping her achieve her goals in life.
As she finished with, 'Soy de dos mundos (I am of two worlds),' there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
During this district-wide celebration of bilingualism, it felt freeing and empowering to raise our bilingual voices in this way. It is equally empowering to know that dual language programs all over our state are striving to raise high-achieving, biliterate students, able to express themselves in two languages and ready to participate as citizens of a multilingual world.
Supported by decades of research, dual language programs have a proven ability to close achievement gaps for all students. Illinois has passed Public Act 103 0362 that encourages schools to expand its dual language efforts and harness the power to close the gap for students, especially those with less opportunities.
While our state is making progress, more needs to be done to gauge these programs' accountability and ensure that students like Alejandra receive high-quality instruction to help them reach their long-term goals. Illinois' current school report card system looks only at English language arts scores. If we're serious about our students' achieving biliteracy and if we're to have successful bilingual programs, we should be gauging our students' ability in both languages.
The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) for students in grades 3-8 assesses their knowledge of the state standards is our most influential test. Seventy-five percent of school designations, and thus funding, is based on this test so schools feel immense pressure to show IAR growth. I know from my own experience that the data that affects the school rating is at the top of the agenda, whereas other equally meaningful data, like scores on the standardized test used to evaluate English learners' proficiency, is left out of the conversation.
If we want to see more children like Alejandra stepping up to proudly declare their two languages, then we need to update the state accountability system to incorporate authentic measures of what our multilingual students can do, whether dual language programs are working well and what can be done to improve them.
There are two additional ways we can improve the system and support our students:
It's time for the state to see the fullness of what our bilingual students can do, just as Alejandra and 12 other bilingual writing winners showed our district in 2023. Alejandra found — and raised — her voice and is now excelling as a biliterate middle school student. If we value bilingualism and biliteracy in schools, we should do everything we can to support our students and their learning.