[00:01] Announcer:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.
[00:13] SPEAKER_01:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Margaret Sullivan Marcus. Maggie Marcus, PhD, is the executive director of the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation, and she's taught high school Spanish and elementary English in Puerto Rico. She then worked for the United Nations as well as the Central Intelligence Agency before returning to the classroom in Washington, D.C. as a Spanish dual language first and second grade teacher. she's also worked as an instructional coach for spanish literacy in a bilingual charter school she has a master in law and diplomacy from the fletcher school at tufts and a phd from the applied linguistics and language education program at the university of maryland college park Her dissertation research titled, Bilingual in a Monolingual School District, Stakeholder Perspectives on Equitable Access to Dual Language Programs, which explored the similarities and differences of parents, policymakers, and school leaders, and access to dual language education programs in a local school district.
[01:09] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[01:12] SPEAKER_01:
Maggie, welcome to Principal Center Radio.
[01:13] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you, Justin. I'm happy to be here.
[01:15] SPEAKER_01:
Well, I'm excited to talk about dual language immersion programs because you have a wealth of experience as an educator and with your diverse career background working for the UN and the CIA and working internationally. Take us into the world of dual language education a little bit because I think it's a little different from what most of our listeners might be familiar with. you know, contrasting it with services for ESL or ELL students. We're talking about kind of a different model here.
[01:47] SPEAKER_00:
Yes. Yes. Thank you. That's a good way to think about it. So dual language education or dual language immersion, as you said, is a service delivery model for English, for non-English speakers. So you could think about it as a method for like a different method from ESL where you provide content, in the student's native language.
[02:09]
So let's say Spanish, which is the second most spoken language in the United States. And through that content and access to that content in their native language, students can acquire the skills that they need to also learn English at the same time. So in an ideal program, you would have a balanced population or a somewhat balanced population. ideally not to go below 30% of one group of language speakers. So you might have 70% English speakers and then 30% of Spanish speakers. And the idea is in that context, they each not only have access to native speaking languages, peers um of the other language but they also get to serve as the experts in one context so when the Spanish when the students are in Spanish the Spanish speakers can will help their English speaking friends and feel like they know more um you know will be able to share their background knowledge and and um and their vocabulary and cultural awareness and all those things and then when they're in the English classroom it would be the same that the English speaking students um
[03:23]
would be the, the experts and, and help with their friends with, um, English acquisition. Um, of course you can have speakers of other languages, um, as well. And some, in some cases in dual language immersion programs, kids are acquiring a third language. Um, if they speak, let's say French at home, and then they're in a Spanish English, um, dual language program. Um, but I use that the, the Spanish English just for simplicity. Um, But yeah, the other big key is that it's content.
[03:54]
So it's not just on teaching about sort of the traditional foreign language. I don't know if you have the same sort of memories I do from being in a class and learning verb conjugations and all those things, but it's much more about learning through the language than it is learning the language. And so that I think is a big distinguisher with dual language immersion programs.
[04:19] SPEAKER_01:
Right. So the entire instructional program, all subject areas are delivered in both languages, kind of divided between them.
[04:27] SPEAKER_00:
Correct. And some schools do, like they only do science, they only teach science in Spanish, or they only teach social studies in English. I think in many cases, it's dependent on what content they have or what curricula they have access to. But ideally, teachers will bridge between languages. So if you're talking about photosynthesis in Spanish one day, the next day you're talking, you're continuing that conversation, but in English.
[04:55] SPEAKER_01:
And you bring a perspective both as a teacher, as someone trained on the academic side, and as executive director of your family foundation. Talk to us a little bit about the work that your foundation does to support this type of program.
[05:09] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you. So what do we do to support this program? I think I will say when I started, I've been in this role about four years. And when I started in this role from my dissertation research, what I learned and perhaps just spanning that my studies at university of Maryland, but was thinking about dual language immersion programs is the best model for multilingual learners. And so when I finished my doctorate and and started at the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation, I really wanted to think about how we could expand programmatic opportunities for multilingual learners, given that we know that it's the best model to provide them a wonderful education. And so at first I thought, okay, well, let's, can we just write a check and expand programs, you know, turn this school A into a dual language immersion school?
[06:03]
And I know that I'm very close with DC Public Schools Language Acquisition Division from having worked there and just continued to build relationships with them over the years. And they had done the budget, you know, breakdown and everything. But it's never that easy, as you know, from being an educator. And so we went back a little bit to think about, okay, my goal is to expand my dual language immersion programs. But we want to make sure that the programs that we have are working well. And we also want to make sure that kids, when they do an elementary school program, they then have a middle or high school program to go into.
[06:47]
And that's become a huge topic of conversation in the D.C. area. And so one thing, so a couple of things. One is funding some of the professional development that they're doing at the elementary school level for D.C. public schools.
[07:03]
in the dual immersion classrooms. So that's having consultant, that's going to conferences, those sort of giving teachers mini scholarships or mini grants to be able to teach a cooking class if they want to, or, you know, buy materials about a newcomer working with newcomer students. So the other piece of that is they're doing the, in the elementary school, they're doing learning. or yeah, learning labs, classrooms that can serve as kind of model classrooms for the school, rolling out best practices and also then showing them, you know, being able to replicate those throughout their schools. So that's the elementary level. And then this, because of that feeder pattern and thought about having, making sure students have a place to continue this model.
[07:56]
This year, we just started doing some work with, we hired a, a nonprofit called Ensemble Learning, and they're coming in to do a landscape analysis and then some work, some professional development with the, there's five dual language or bilingual. They all have different models. So I'll just say like that offer Spanish and English bilingual programs. And then the last piece, I think, that's directly related is the teacher pipeline. And I don't know if you can, you think about that in Seattle or in Arkansas too, but we don't have enough teachers and certainly not in the area of bilingual or dual language education. And so the other project that I'm working on with a couple other funders is trying to create a pilot pipeline for, we're starting with early childhood teachers and bilingual teachers to give them
[08:54]
what they need to be in a club to work. It's, it's also rather complicated or more complicated than, than, you know, you might start think, or I thought it was at the beginning. Um, but really trying to thread the needle between DCPS, HR, basically, um, this office of the state superintendent, and then also a local university to try to create a path and work with another nonprofit called the National Center for Teacher Residencies to, um, able to establish a pilot program and hope to fill that gap that we often see for qualified bilingual teachers. Yeah.
[09:36] SPEAKER_01:
And I know that must be a challenge because finding anyone to be a teacher can be a challenge, much less someone who is bilingual. Now, is it the case that these programs are always staffed by Like, are all the teachers who work in these programs bilingual? Or do you have, you know, say, one teacher who speaks only English, one teacher who speaks only Spanish? Or what are the kind of the requirements there for that to work?
[09:59] SPEAKER_00:
That's a great question. Schools do it all different sorts of ways. I think, ideally, you have a bilingual program. a teacher who's bilingual in English and Spanish who can provide, for example, who can provide the Spanish content. And then you have an English teacher who's also certified in ESL or in English as a second language so that he or she also knows how to provide those additional language supports for students who are acquiring English. I mean, if you could have, if everyone could be bilingual, that would be awesome.
[10:33]
But I think you don't need necessarily the English teachers to also be bilingual. I think it's a bonus if they are. I know when I taught second grade, I was both teach, I was the Spanish and the English teacher. So I had to like just change my, you know, put on a scarf or something for a different, for one of the languages. And then I had a co-teacher who, who did not speak Spanish, but she was certified in ESL. And so she had that language support component.
[11:07]
But it depends a lot, too, on what schools have access to, like what In some cases, I remember asking recently at a school visit, why do you teach social studies in English? And they said, well, because the Spanish speakers don't, or the social studies is only in English, like the curriculum only comes in English. And so like there's some division depending on either speaker ability of teachers and or what materials are available to them.
[11:38] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, I want to come back to the materials and curriculum question, but I wanted to ask before we move on about the pipeline side, because it strikes me that the general teacher pipeline has narrowed. There are fewer people going into education, so we're having to be creative and look at ways to broaden that pipeline and do things like fellowships. So I'm interested in some of your work in that area. And I'm also thinking about the efforts that we've made over many years to not say, okay, who are the teachers who can do X, but who are the people who are already able to do X that we can bring into teaching. You know, like if we're looking for someone to teach metal shop, well, rather than find the teachers who can teach metal shop, find the people who can teach metal shop and help them become teachers and building pathways around that. And certainly there are lots of bilingual people in the United States, but not all of them are teachers or thinking about becoming teachers.
[12:32]
So how do you approach those pipeline issues? And you mentioned that there are some programs that you're supporting.
[12:39] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think for one, and what I hope to do in DC when we start this pipeline project, pilot project is to focus on para educators. And so they're typically, a lot of them are Spanish speaking or multilingual learners or speakers of other languages in addition to English.
[13:03]
But most of them are paras because they don't have the credential to be a classroom teacher. And in the school where I taught and then later did my dissertation work, I found that the paras were the ones providing the content at the preschool level in Spanish because they were the Spanish speakers, but they were being compensated as paras and the classroom teachers were English because they didn't speak, they didn't speak Spanish to your other, other question about language capacities.
[13:36]
But so they, so they were the teachers of record, but it was really the paras that were doing the heavy lifting. And so I, I think one thing is to really think about who's already in our schools that either shows leadership qualities or has the drive or the want to be a teacher and really trying to grow the people in the building. And I think the other piece is, like you mentioned also, thinking about the community is important. if it's a parent or someone like in the local, it's someone in an afterschool program or it's someone in the church community that's important to this school district. Um, so I think really being creative and thinking, like you said, like not necessarily people who are studying, who, you know, metal, metalworking, metalworking, um, but like thinking about who is it that does this work that might want to be a teacher.
[14:30]
So who is it that's already involved in the community and with children and has barriers that we can help them overcome to be in the classroom?
[14:46] SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, and I've noticed that Teach for America, which targets elite college graduates rather than people who are already in the community, has started broadening their pipeline into their teaching programs by targeting tutors and saying, hey, if you want to be a tutor, that's a great way to find out if you want to potentially work in education. And certainly if someone's a para, that's further along that path. But yeah, I think we've got to look at more options for getting people into teaching because traditionally what we've done is we've said, hey, if you want to be a teacher, go away for a long time spend a lot of money and then come back and maybe you can be a teacher you know go through a traditional teacher certification program spend lots of money don't get paid for at least you know four or six months to do a student teaching internship and a lot of people are saying you know voting with their feet and saying i don't really want to do that that does not seem like a uh you know a great path for me so talk to us a little bit more about some of those paths are they
[15:42]
residencies, alternative certification? What are some of the different pathways from being a parent or being a para or being a tutor or being a community member who maybe has most of the non-teaching skills that are necessary to actually get them into a full teacher role?
[15:59] SPEAKER_00:
I think one piece that we're missing, certainly locally, and I think from what I understand, like Gwinnett County in Georgia does this pretty well, but is thinking about recruiting students in the high school, right? So having high school students who work as tutors, for example, in some of these, in this case, let's say in dual language programs, who might be native Spanish speakers, and now they're a little bit older and they've been through the model themselves. And they're in a space where they can go back to an elementary school and do tutoring. And then I don't know how you can harness them to then get them through college, right? To get to, to have them go through a traditional, or let's say in this sense, a traditional four-year teacher education program. I think if there were,
[16:52]
more structure between local districts and universities, that would be a really great pathway. And I think that, I don't know, there may be in Washington state might have some, might do that in some, in some places. I think there was one other thing I was going to say about, Oh, well also, I mean, I think, yes. So the, the, the pilot that we're trying to do is a residency program and the organization that we're funding is to start the pilot, the National Center for Teacher Residencies believes really strongly in paying their residents, which I also am excited about because when I, as a professor at University of Maryland, when I work with pre-service teachers, especially at the master's level where there are a lot of career changers and they're doing a one-year intensive master plus certification program, they're not paid to do their residency and they're expected to be in the schools, what, eight to four.
[17:55]
Then they come for classes from five to 8 p.m. And then they have families or like some of them have jobs they have to work on the weekends or it just, it does not make for a productive learning environment. And so I think that's something as a, and I guess I speak sort of out of turn saying this, but I think as a country generally, we don't do that. That's not how we have supported teacher candidates. And I think that that's a huge injustice to them because it, I mean, it's been, especially in the case, I mean, they're not making any income to pay for their studies or to help support their family when they're career changers.
[18:40]
So I think we need to think more about how we can incentivize students through not making it so challenging to get in the door, right? And to sign up to be a teacher through incentives, whether it's stipends or getting them paid positions in residencies, right? Like they can be a paraeducator or an instructional aid while they're doing a program. And I think also then you need some flexibility. And I was just thinking, I was just having this conversation a couple of days ago, that the principals are a big part of that too, because if you have paras and you want to give them this kind of non-traditional pathway, they need to have release, right? From like, they need to go to class on Fridays.
[19:26]
And so you have to have leaders that will buy in and that will support that sort of flexibility too so it's not like no you work five days and then you go to class at night right you need like that's can't that doesn't work well for everybody um so i think more creative thinking is what we is what we need to to incentivize people to go into the classroom yeah absolutely very well said very well said um
[19:54] SPEAKER_01:
Let's go back to the curriculum issue. And certainly curriculum is a complex issue, even if we're only talking about delivering curriculum in one language. What are some of the key issues in a dual language education program where some of the subjects, like perhaps science or social studies, are taught in a different language like Spanish?
[20:17] SPEAKER_00:
I think one thing that I see that's just also like we need to shift is that it doesn't work to just translate materials. I think there are many times I hear schools say, well, we just took the science curriculum and translated it into Spanish. And like, okay, so now you have the language part, but I think you're still missing this, this dual language, this bilingualism component. And I think when we think of bilingual education or dual language immersion, we think of these three pillars of bilingualism, biliteracy, and cultural competence. And so I think what we're missing oftentimes from curriculum is that cultural competence piece, because it's one thing to have materials in the language, but I think you also need to... Dual language education is also
[21:11]
the cross between these two languages. And so it's not just one side of your brain for Spanish and one side of your brain for English. And I think a lot of, times we either there it's a lot of either translation like at the school or district level um or there's materials only available in in english um or there's i mean we see it a lot with assessments too then with state assessments and the like um only being in in english and so even if you say that both languages hold equal importance if one has a state exam and the others has a Fontas and Pinnell Dibbles test or a Dibbles test, you know, it doesn't sort of equate the same.
[22:02]
But it is something I've been thinking a lot about because I I have a hard time believing that there's not a really strong curriculum out there for a dual language program that offers, let's say language arts in Spanish and English. But it seems like a lot of districts like make it up and say like, or, you know, make it up. Maybe that's not the right phrase, but they create their own curriculum. And I think a lot of times if everybody's doing that independently, it seems like a lot of lack of efficiency, right? That that for everyone to be creating their own curricula. So I was talking to my husband recently about like going to do a postdoc and dual language curriculum, you know, like seeing if we could like just spend a year focused, like what is out there?
[22:54]
What are some of the strong tools? Where do we really still need help? Because I do think it's a pretty big issue that we haven't figured out yet.
[23:10] SPEAKER_01:
Well, Maggie, I know when I was a principal in Seattle, we had a number of highly sought after dual language immersion programs, I think with Spanish and perhaps some other languages as well. And certainly parents definitely see the value of raising kids to be multilingual, even if they are not personally. So there often is a lot of parental interest in these programs. I think there's also a societal value. So talk to us a little bit about what you see as the value of multilingual education for students for our country. And then if you could let people know how they can get in touch with you, that would be great as well.
[23:45] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, great. So I totally agree with you. I think in the D.C. area, we also see this real growing interest in dual language immersion programs. And it's interesting that in D.C. and I think in other gentrifying places in the United States, we see it increasingly.
[24:04]
primarily from white English speaking families who are really interested in having their kids in a dual language program. And I think this stems from a curiosity of being able to speak another language, knowing that there are cognitive benefits of being bilingual and wanting kids to have access to other cultures, to learn about other cultures and to be able to travel to other places and be able to communicate with people who are different, right? Who speak other languages. And so I think it's interesting. I think that one of the challenges that we see in some of the literature is Spanish speaking families aren't always sold on the idea of a dual language program. In some cases, the parents might have immigrated to the US and they say, well, I really want my kids to learn English.
[24:50]
That's why we're here. So if they have Spanish, are they going to still be able to acquire English? And I think that's a really interesting component that One might not expect, but that's definitely been both anecdotally and in the research, some of what I've seen. But we know also for Spanish speakers, what I would say here from parents is the ability for their kids to be able to connect with their own culture, their own language, their relatives, and in many cases, families that have relatives, whether it's Puerto Rico or Mexico, and wanting that, you know, my abuela doesn't speak English, so I want my kids to be able to speak with her in Spanish. And in some cases, I think also for white monolingual or white English speakers, it's economic and same for Spanish speaking too, but it's the economic benefits of being more marketable in the job place if you speak more than one language.
[25:46]
And I think it promotes being multilingual or bilingual promotes this sense of tolerance and curiosity. And I think you really... can connect best with people when you speak their language. Of course, you can still connect with people if you don't have the same language, right?
[26:07]
We've all done that, I think, or traveling in places where we might not speak the language, but it really enriches your experience. And so I think From that sense, the value also just looking around our country, how diverse it is, how we have so many different cultures and languages and opportunities to learn from each other and to be tolerant of differences. I think that's a big part. So yeah, that's what I would say. And I am on LinkedIn with Maggie Marcus, the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation. And our website is sullivanfamilycharitablefoundation.org.
[26:48]
So, yes, I would be happy for people to reach out to me.
[26:51] SPEAKER_01:
Dr. Maggie Marcus, thank you so much for joining us on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.
[26:55] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you. Likewise. Thank you for having me.
[26:58] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
