Too often, multilingual learners are met with well-meaning sympathy instead of transformative support. But a growing body of evidence shows that the “warm-demander” teaching approach can change that. When a struggling student is paired with a teacher who genuinely believes in them, but also pushes them to go beyond their limits, they can reach academic… Continue reading Warm-Demander Classrooms: New Teaching Strategies and Approaches for Multilingual Learners
In spring 2025, five Texas districts reported that anxiety referrals for English-learner (EL) students doubled in a single semester. The spike mirrors national trends: CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found persistent increases in depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts among adolescents, especially girls and students of color. This post unpacks why ELs are at heightened… Continue reading Student Mental Health Support for English Learners: Trauma-Informed SEL That Works
In classrooms across America, beloved bilingual educators are burning out, and students are paying the price. Public teachers in the U.S. are already facing some mental health challenges: The 2024 RAND American Teacher Survey found that about twice as many teachers reported experiencing burnout when compared to similar working adults. And for bilingual teachers, the… Continue reading Teacher Well-Being Is Student Success: Mental-Health Grants That Keep Veteran Bilingual Teachers in the Classroom
Is your school or district struggling with a bilingual teacher shortage? You are not alone. The United States entered the 2025-26 school year with somewhere between 42,000 and 100,000 vacant teaching positions, and bilingual/ESL classrooms were hit the hardest, leaving roughly one in four English-learner seats without a certified teacher. Yet, inside those very classrooms,… Continue reading Grow Your Own: Solving America’s Bilingual Teacher Shortage
Latino excellence —and the allies who champion it—took center stage at the 4th Annual Latino Educators Shine Awards, held on May 28, 2025 in the historic Massachusetts State House. The ceremony lifted up 40 trail-blazing Latino educators whose “cultura, liderazgo y corazón” are transforming classrooms across the Commonwealth while also honoring the policymakers who help… Continue reading Latino Educators Shine Awards: Cultura, Liderazo, y Corazón
Want to learn how you can support multilingual learners? Every day, more than five million multilingual learners walk into U.S. classrooms, bringing linguistic assets that can power academic success and global citizenship. Yet those same students often confront shortages of trained bilingual teachers, fragmented support systems, and policies that lag behind practice. At the Sullivan… Continue reading Bridging Theory & Practice to Support Multilingual Learners
In every school I visit, I hear the same quiet alarm: our multilingual learners are carrying an invisible weight that is slowing their academic recovery and silencing their voices. A recent Century Foundation commentary I authored, “English Learners Are Increasingly Struggling with Mental Health Challenges,” confirms what educators have been whispering since campuses reopened—English learners… Continue reading The Mental Health Challenges That English Learners Are Facing
Before COVID-19 shuttered classrooms, English learners (ELs) were already navigating the twin challenges of mastering academic content and a new language. The Century Foundation’s 2021 brief “Pandemic Response to Pandemic Recovery: Helping English Learners Succeed This Fall and Beyond” argues that the pandemic turned those hurdles into roadblocks—and that schools still have a window (though… Continue reading Why Multilingual Learners Are Still Catching Up in 2025
