New York State Education Department Policies, Mandates and Initiatives on the Education of English Language Learners

Overview & Synopsis

This article is a summary of a longer report, completed under the direction of the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society and the doctoral program in Urban Education at the Graduate Center in the City University of New York (CUNY) with funding provided by the New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (NYSIEB). It describes educational laws, policies, mandates, and initiatives regarding the education of English language learners, which took shape and reverberated in the New York State Education Department. This historical descriptive research focused on the period from 1965 to the year 2013. The content of the report includes information obtained through interviews and the analysis of a significant number of educational documents, including Regents' policies, memoranda, position papers, publications, resource guides, and other programmatic information developed and disseminated by the New York State Education Department (NYSED). Based on the original report, this article critically examines the historical trajectory of the enactment of bilingual education programs geared to educating culturally and linguistically diverse students across New York state. The entire report can be found at the CUNY-NYSIEB website http://www.nysieb.ws.gc.cuny.edu/files/2014/05/CUNY-NYSIEB-Report-NY-StatePolicies-to-NYSED-04-30-2014-Final.pdf