The Emerging Bilingual Collaborative, established in 2019 by a group of foundations, aims to address the challenges faced by young multilingual learners—students developing proficiency in multiple languages—who are often underserved in California’s education system. By investing in PreK through 3rd-grade educators and administrators, the Collaborative seeks to ensure high-quality education in environments that value multilingual students, recognizing the lasting benefits of their success for all learners and California’s multilingual economy. In 2021, the Collaborative partnered with Education First to launch the Implementing High-Quality Instructional Practices for Multilingual Learners Grant Opportunity and Community of Practice (ML HQIP CoP) to help select education systems adopt effective instructional practices. These two resources share recommendations for philanthropy, policymakers and system leaders to strengthen, sustain, and scale these efforts based on lessons from the ML HQIP initiative.
The Brief
Funders should consider investment opportunities to provide all young MLs with a high-quality education. We developed a report, Empowering Emerging Bilinguals: Policy and Leadership Recommendations from a Community of Practice, where we provided recommendations for policymakers and education system leaders to address successes and challenges surfaced from our work with the ML HQIP CoP. However, we know that philanthropy can take specific, powerful roles—as investors, conveners, capacity builders and advocates, among others—to create awareness of pressing issues. The EBC’s support of 11 education systems across California drew attention to the pressing needs of MLs in the state and the impact that high-quality instructional practices have on ML success. Philanthropic support will directly impact our education systems, improving their capacity to identify and meet ML needs, alongside a collateral effect of messaging the importance and impact of high-quality ML education.
The Report
Our report summarizes the Emerging Bilingual Collaborative—why it was created, who the funders are and details on the ML HQIP CoP participants. The report features an overview of successes achieved by the grantees, a spotlight on two of them and reviews the systemic and individualized challenges facing grantees in supporting their MLLs. It ends with a series of recommendations for policymakers to support and enhance ML education in California and for leaders in education systems.
