Fusion – Casey Tolan
“As more and more students who don’t speak English register for public school this summer, school districts across the country are racing to hire bilingual teachers, and sometimes looking abroad for candidates. Global events—such as a wave of refugees from the Middle East and undocumented minors from Central America—and continued growth among the Latino population have led to higher levels of students who don’t speak English. But there’s been a shortage of bilingual teachers for years. “This is not a new phenomenon, it’s a structural dysfunction of the U.S. education system,” said Santiago Wood, the executive director of the National Association for Bilingual Education, an advocacy group in Washington D.C. “The federal government does not give any priority attention to this area.” The number of English Language Learners (a broader group that includes English as a Second Language students) in the U.S. has risen from about five percent of all K-12 public school students in 1990 to more than 10 percent of students today. Of those ELL students, 71 percent speak Spanish, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.”(more)