Trump Administration Retracts Instructions on Helping English Learners

The Trump administration has rescinded federal guidance requiring schools to provide a broad range of services to students who are not proficient in English.

Those services include language acquisition classes, supports for disabilities and access to grade-level curriculum materials.

The guidance was issued in 2015 under President Barack Obama. At that time, the Education and Justice Departments told school districts that failing to provide such services would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which seeks to prevent discrimination based on race and national origin.

But under President Trump, the White House has pursued a near-reversal of the federal government’s interpretation of Title VI. Instead of using the law to seek support for racial and ethnic minorities, as it was established to do, the administration has often argued that efforts to help groups such as immigrant and Black children are discriminatory toward other students.

The rescission was first reported by The Washington Post.

In a statement, the Education Department said the rescinded guidance “was overly prescriptive and micro-managing of how states implement federal English language programs.”

The statement added: “States have vastly different needs for this important population of students and are best equipped to determine how best to educate these students while following all applicable federal laws.”

School districts might not immediately change their practices in response to the rescission. Many are committed to providing these services.

But experts cautioned that without federal pressure, some districts would weaken their supports for students learning English. Staff cuts at the Education Department have drastically reduced the number of employees who support local schools in the areas of language-acquisition and civil rights.

Jill Siegelbaum, a former lawyer at the agency whose position was eliminated earlier this month, said she was concerned that districts would respond to the rescission of the guidance by failing to integrate students learning English into the mainstream school population.

“There is nothing holding the school districts accountable in any meaningful way,” she said.

She also pointed out that the underlying laws and regulations regarding the rights of students learning English had not changed since the 1980s.

“They are testing boundaries,” she said of the Trump administration. “And they don’t seem to have any problem challenging laws that have been repeatedly tested, examined, re-examined and relied upon for significant periods of time. That is true across the board.”