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Even if the federal government renounces its role in educating English learners, Cheruba Sophia Chavez knows what’s in the fine print.
A federal toolkit helped the New Orleans educator support new immigrant students. Federal guidance helped her train teachers to avoid common violations of English learners’ civil rights. And U.S. Department of Education resources have shown her how Louisiana’s instruction stacks up with other states.
So when the Trump administration reduced the office that oversees English learners to a single person, revoked that guidance, and took the toolkits offline, she pointed teachers to the expansive footnotes on the now-rescinded guidance chock full of “precedent, and law, and case studies, and rulings.”
“Those are still standing,” said Chavez, who has worked with English learners for over a decade. “Our obligation to serve these children remains the same.”
Under President Donald Trump, the federal government is systematically retreating from helping educate English learners and protecting their civil rights. In addition to yanking federal guidance and resources, the president is seeking to eliminate all $890 million in federal funding for English language acquisition programs in schools.
All of that puts more responsibility on states and local schools to educate English learners. Their track record of doing so is mixed.
Some say states can and will fill the void, and may do a better job without federal oversight. But many educators and experts fear that setup will leave English learners and their families behind. Services and protections for English learners will become more scattershot, they say, and students whose rights are violated may have no recourse other than to file lawsuits — an expensive and uncertain proposition for families and schools.
Already, about 1 in 5 teachers say their school rarely or never meets the needs of children learning English, according to a 2023 nationally representative survey.
“We have states who will make sure that the students keep receiving the resources and the instruction that English learners need, but we have other states who aren’t necessarily going to,” said Montserrat Garibay, who led the federal Office of English Language Acquisition during the Biden administration. She worries “we’re going to go back to the ’90s ‘sink or swim’ methods, where you have students who are not going to learn the language and are going to fail.”
Should the feds pay for students to learn English?
All schools must help English learners overcome language barriers so they can access a meaningful education. It’s a requirement under the 1974 landmark Supreme Court ruling in Lau v. Nichols.
Right now, states get federal Title III dollars for English language acquisition programs based on census counts of children learning English. School districts apply for that money, and states award it based on how many English learners and immigrant students they enroll.
Immigrants are generally more successful in the U.S. if they acquire English skills, said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for lower rates of immigration. And public school programs that teach kids English are “an investment that’s generally understood as worth it,” Vaughan said, especially for younger children.
But she understands why taxpayers might be “frustrated by having to bear the cost” of programs for older children who arrive with little formal schooling and may need more intensive support.
To Vaughan, the Trump administration is doing the right thing by moving away from influencing what states provide with offers of federal funding.
“I would expect states to support local communities that are dealing with it,” she said. “States are going to have to work this out within their own budget.”
Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says eliminating Title III funding would rightly reduce the federal government’s role in education.
“I don’t believe that we need Title III in order to have programs for English language learners,” Butcher said. States should be able to identify on their own which student needs deserve the most support, he said. “This is the kind of freedom that we should be giving state officials.”
And if a state chose not to spend anything to help English learners become proficient in English? “There would be a civil rights lawsuit,” Butcher said.
Others say the federal government sets immigration policy, so it should help states pay for the K-12 education of new arrivals, and that the federal government has a vested interest in helping English learners — most of whom were born in the U.S.
“If they’re not well-equipped with the skills that they need for the 21st century, who’s going to pay for my retirement?” said Garibay, the former Biden official. “I hate to say that it’s an economy thing, but it is.”
Congress currently puts $890 million annually toward English language acquisition. That Title III money is meant to pay for extra support like after-school tutoring, family outreach, and teacher training.
But many educators and advocates say those federal funds have failed to keep pace with the growth of the English learner population and fall far short of what schools need.
Still, Trump has proposed eliminating Title III funds from the fiscal year 2026 budget, a move that his administration says would “end overreach from Washington.” After the president signed an executive order designating English as the nation’s official language, Trump officials said the English language acquisition program should be eliminated because it “actually deemphasizes English primacy” and encourages bilingualism.
The broader political climate is also a factor. Many children from immigrant families are experiencing heightened stress and fear as the Trump administration’s deportation campaign intensifies. That makes it harder to show up regularly to school and stay focused in class.
Federal law and court decisions say states can choose what kind of instruction they provide to English learners. Some states lean more heavily on helping children become proficient in their native language first, which research has shown can help them transfer skills and develop stronger English abilities.
The Senate appropriations committee passed a bipartisan bill that would hold Title III funding steady at $890 million. But the House appropriations committee approved the elimination of Title III, citing “funding constraints.”
Leslie Villegas, a senior policy analyst at New America, a left-leaning think tank, says ending Title III would be a general funding cut that would “hurt all students.” And it would put educators in “a really difficult position to make hard choices that they shouldn’t have to make.”
Becky Trammell, a special education teacher in Minneapolis Public Schools, knows what that’s like.
Recent waves of immigration brought more Spanish-speaking families to her elementary school, in addition to Somali- and Hmong-speakers. After splitting an English learner teacher with other schools, her school now has two full-time.
But Trammell said she still has to rely on apps and phone interpretation services that don’t always work.
Once, a Somali-speaking parent thought she was being pranked because the phone interpreter didn’t actually speak Somali. And one of her students told her he doesn’t like the phone translation app, so she reads it aloud in her broken Spanish.
“We’re already working at a deficit when it comes to staffing and money,” Trammell said. If her school were to lose Title III dollars, she worries “they’re going to cut positions or what little supports we do have, we’re not going to have those.”
What are key state policies for English learners?
States already set many of their own policies for educating English learners and see a wide range of outcomes.
English learners in Texas, for example, are much more likely to be enrolled in bilingual education programs where they receive native language support than in California, which has a complicated history with English-only instruction. Texas’ English learners consistently outperform English learners in California on key national tests — though state test scores in Texas have raised concerns.
With less federal involvement and oversight, Villegas at New America worries families of English learners and their advocates will find it harder to seek redress for their complaints.
“Leaving it up to the discretion of states to do that, that’s really troubling,” she said. That is “not the point of civil rights.”
The Trump administration has released several school districts, including Boston and Newark, New Jersey from settlement agreements meant to correct inadequate services for English learners. In Newark, the end of government monitoring came just months after the Biden administration flagged the district for failing to consistently use qualified interpreters.
Chavez, the Louisiana educator, fears that if Title III goes away, there will be less federal monitoring, and that English learners will only get their needs met if they make up a “critical mass” at a school.
One moment sticks in her memory: When Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry was sworn in last year, one of the Republican’s first actions was to veto a new policy Chavez and other educators lobbied for to help more English learners get their diplomas.
“We know their posture toward English learners,” Chavez said, adding that she and others aren’t “looking to the state for anything affirmative to protect our children and to close the disparate outcomes for English learners in our state.”
Still, advocates for English learners say there is a lot states can do.
They can enshrine the Supreme Court ruling that gave children the right to receive a free public education regardless of their immigration status in state law, as Illinois and Massachusetts recently did. Or they can bolster requirements for how English learners are taught in their state, as Michigan recently did.
School boards could also adopt policies that add oversight and consequences if goals aren’t met, Villegas said.
When Garibay worked in the federal English learner office, she saw “a lot of great work” happening in dual language programs and parent engagement.
“That gives me a lot of hope,” she said. “In these very uncertain times, the most important work happens at the local level.”
Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.
