A national coalition of educators and advocates for English learners is calling on the U.S. Department of Education to reinstate federal guidance that the Trump administration quietly rescinded in August.
The National English Learner Roundtable submitted a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Attorney General Pam Bondi on Sept. 12 denouncing the Trump administration’s decision to rescind a 2015 Dear Colleague Letter, which outlined English learners’ education rights.
“The 2015 guidance provided the framework enabling our states and schools to ensure that English learners have access to the pathways toward graduation, higher education, and the workforce—contributing positively to the economy and fabric of the United States,” the advocates’ letter says.
Though federal laws on English learners’ education remain in place even after the guidance’s rescission, advocates say the decision “sends a dangerous and misleading signal to educational agencies that enforcing the civil rights of the more than five million English learners is optional and has created uncertainty about their federal legal obligations to English learners and their families.”
When asked on Sept. 17 whether the Education Department would consider reinstating the guidance, press officials said in a statement that “the now rescinded 2015 Dear Colleague Letter on English-learning students was overly prescriptive and micro-managing of how states implement federal English language programs.”
“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,” they added.
States, districts need federal guidance, advocates say
The 2015 Dear Colleague Letter, now available online “for historical purposes only,” was helpful in articulating how civil rights law, case law, and federal education policy all intersect to shape requirements for English-learner programs, said Megan Hopkins, the chair and a professor in the Department of Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
It also outlined how the department’s office for civil rights has seen violations of students’ rights and recommended how to address those most commonly cited violations, Hopkins added.
Yet, Hopkins reminded state education leaders that their responsibilities to English learners and their families remain in place today.
“It’s really sort of incumbent on states to think about what do these provisions mean and how do we continue to uphold them? And that should be done irrespective of whether there’s a Dear Colleague letter,” she said.
The advocates’ letter urging reinstatement warns that without clear federal guidance and technical assistance, states and school districts could fall into noncompliance.
In an initial statement following the guidance’s rescission, press officials with the Education Department said the guidance was rescinded “because it is not aligned with administration priorities.”
How states can move forward without guidance
Education Department press officials did not directly say whether educators can expect new updated guidance meant to replace the 2015 Dear Colleague letter.
Hopkins said that, for some time, educators and researchers have urged the department to update guidance that reflects the new ways the field has been thinking about multilingualism and bilingual education. This includes how to differentiate supports for students across different proficiency levels, what staffing should look like, and clearer expectations not only for program staffing but also for aligning practices with current research.
In the meantime, Hopkins created a resource for state education agencies that covers the overarching obligations that states and districts have to multilingual learners and their families, highlighting the legal basis for those as well as the statutory authority and the judicial precedent for each of those requirements.