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Dear Supporters and Partners,   The Rhode Island state budget was released on Friday, and the Support and Access to Bilingual Education (SABE) Act (H-7389) was not included. There is still an opportunity to secure funding through a budget amendment due Wednesday - but it will require immediate action.  We are asking you to call, email, and share this action with your networks today through Wednesday.  The SABE Act supports Rhode Island's multilingual educator pipeline, which is already connecting multilingual adults to educator certification pathways and helping address critical teacher shortages across the state.  This is less than $1 million investment in a proven pipeline that is already producing results. Without continued funding, Rhode Island risks losing momentum and leaving candidates already in the pipeline without support.  TAKE ACTION Please call and email using the scripts provided, access full instructions and email scripts here:  https://bit.ly/Support-SABE-Act-RI

Check out our advocacy pages for each state to stay up-to-date with our Advocacy efforts: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Visit our Immigration Resources page and Public Statements page, too.   Email us with any advocacy news.

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This virtual conversation with Dr. Brenda Lewis, the Superintendent of Fridley Public Schools in Minnesota, hosted by the National Center for Youth Law, will take place tomorrow Wednesday, March 11 at 4-5pm ET. REGISTER TO JOIN FREE WEBINAR ICE enforcement during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota has completely upended life in Fridley Public Schools. In Fridley, immigrant staff have been escorted to school by colleagues, the superintendent conducted daily patrols for ICE agents, and fear of ICE enforcement has sown fear among students and families. Despite the federal occupation, Superintendent Lewis has earned respect from leaders across the country for her outstanding leadership in recent months, fighting to advance access, opportunity, and belonging for all of her students. As Superintendent Lewis noted recently before addressing the People's State of the Union, "As a superintendent and lifelong educator, I’m looking forward to speaking out about the unacceptable reality our school district has endured at the hands of a federal agency - and to make sure this never happens to another school district in the nation again.” Superintendent Lewis will discuss: How educators should prepare for and respond effectively to immigration enforcement activities in their communities. What worked best for her district for protecting and supporting students. Issues like student absenteeism and retention, as well as funding issues that have the potential to harm students now and in the future. What advocates and policy makers should know as they build systemic protections for schools and students in the future.   The discussion will also include an opportunity for questions and answers.

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Update as of February 13, 2026: 

Great news for English learners and multilingual communities - Title III is level-funded at $890 M in the newly approved federal education budget! This means continued support for language acquisition and academic achievement nationwide. Let’s celebrate and keep advocating for equitable education funding! Read more in EdWeeks article. ACLUs press release also covers how the Department of Education is backing down on its unlawful directive targeting educational equity.

EL student and teacher funding is in danger again! Congress needs to hear from you before the end of the month.

Congress is currently in FY 26 budget talks regarding education funding, with appropriations potentially happening as early as this week. Last year the Senate Appropriations Committee put forth a bill that keeps most program funding at the same level. However, the House Appropriations Subcommittee moved forward a markup that would eliminate or reduce funding supporting educators and ELs at all levels.

If the House version passes, this would impact schools' ability to:

• Provide language instruction programs and targeted academic support
  
• Offer critical professional development for teachers of ELs
  
• Ensure proper planning, staffing, and budgeting for the 2025-26 school year

Help Protect EL Federal Funding

We need you to act now! The bill now goes to the Senate for debate and, hopefully, passage next week before January 30, when the current continuing resolution funding the government expires. Express your support for the Senate Version of the Education Appropriations Bill and tell them funds for EL students and educators must be protected.  Thank you to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Illinois Resource Center (IRC) for leading the charge on this campaign. Cross-posted on Public Statements page.

Dear educator,

As a leader in a Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) district, we are writing to offer you the opportunity to support your program(s) by expanding the use of performance assessment, providing more accurate, equitable, and actionable measures of student learning. 

As you know, your DLBE program works to develop bilingualism and biliteracy through content and language instruction in and through two languages (a partner language and English) simultaneously, meeting the same state standards as general education programs. Because these goals of bilingualism and biliteracy diverge from the goals of typical EL programs, English-medium assessments alone are not valid for the population of students in DLBE programs (which can include both EL and non-EL students). Looking at students’ academic proficiency using both languages of instruction provides a more accurate picture of their knowledge in the content areas as well as their language proficiency across both languages. When we can assess in both languages and analyze the results holistically rather than as two separate data sets, we get a clearer picture of students’ complete range of both conceptual and language knowledge. 

Finding valid, reliable, and comparable standardized assessments in languages other than English is quite challenging for DLBE programs. Performance assessments are uniquely well-suited to DLBE programs because they solve this problem. 

Why Performance Assessments 

• Equitable: English-only assessments do not fully reflect DLBE students’ knowledge or skills. Performance assessments can be designed in students’ home languages and/or bilingually, differentiating between language proficiency and conceptual understanding, so all students can demonstrate what they know and can do. 

• Comprehensive: Performance assessments capture both content mastery and language use, providing a fuller picture of students’ knowledge, skills, and thinking. 

• Reliable: Standardized tests in multiple languages can be difficult to find. Performance assessment uses rubrics that can be applied consistently across languages, providing reliable evidence without requiring tests in multiple languages.

• Culturally-relevant: Performance assessments can be designed to be culturally relevant, allowing DLBE students to leverage their sociocultural knowledge and skills, while supporting identity development. 

• Actionable: Performance assessment generates detailed evidence of students’ knowledge, skills, and thinking processes, which can be used to inform instruction and support program continuation or expansion. 

Importantly, evidence from a recent two-year pilot showed smaller performance gaps between English Learners and their English-speaking peers, compared to those observed with MCAS scores. These results suggest that performance assessments show greater accuracy and equity in measuring student learning.

MCIEA Partnership Opportunity

The Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA) supports educators statewide in developing and implementing performance assessment systems. Key resources include: 

• Professional development in task design, implementation, and scoring.
  
• A growing, open-access Task Bank with 150+ performance tasks across grades and disciplines.
  
• A network of districts and schools that have embraced teacher-designed, curriculum-embedded performance assessments, grounded in both state academic standards and essential skills, to share effective performance assessment practices.
  

MCIEA Director of Performance Assessment, Nikki Holland, who we have copied here, will be following up this email to offer support and partnership in implementing performance assessment systems in DLBE programs. We encourage you to take advantage of the consortium’s resources and tools to enhance assessment practices in your respective DLBE programs. Nikki can be reached at snholland@umass.edu.

Sincerely,

Phyllis Hardy, MABE Executive Director

Meg Burns, MABE Director of Professional Learning

Susan McGilvray-Rivet, MABE Associate