Abstract
California and the rest of the United Sates are undergoing significant challenges in providing educational opportunities for an increasingly diverse population. These challenges include inadequate literacy and numeracy skills among large segments of the student and adult populations; an ongoing shift in the demographic profile of the population, powered by the highest immigration rates in nearly a century, and the continuing evolution of the economy and the nation's job structure, requiring higher levels of skills from an increasing proportion of workers. In the 1990's the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) responded to these challenges in a forward thinking manner in, through the development of the Cross-culture, Language and Academic Development (CLAD) and the Bilingual CLAD (BCLAD) emphasis certificates. The purpose of these certifications was to ensure that every graduate of a credential/licensure program in California was prepared to provide for the educational needs of English learners, whether in an English language development program (via CLAD) or in a bilingual program (via BCLAD). The CLAD and BCLAD authorizations changed in 1998 when the state of California passed Senate Bill 2042 (SB 2042). This bill required CCTC to restructure the CLAD emphasis certification that authorized teachers to provide instruction to English learners. The passage of SB 2042 led to greater emphasis on English acquisition and less on biliteracy and bilingual development. Though not intentional, the passage of SB 2042 coincided with the passage of Proposition 227, which required that English learners be taught in English unless families specifically requested that their children be in a bilingual program. In the fall of 2005 and spring 2006, the CCTC initiated a series of community stakeholder hearings on B/CLAD with the purpose of realigning the credential with SB 2042. This article presents the four policy questions that stakeholders were asked to address and the recommendations from the bilingual workgroup.