Dual Language Learners Make Up Half of Preschoolers: What That Means for California

Multilingual children are one of California’s greatest assets, their skills enrich communities and make the state’s economy more competitive. Supporting these children effectively is an investment in California’s future. Among this group are dual language learners (DLLs), a term used in early childhood education to refer to young children learning two or more languages.¹“Dual language learner” means children whose first language is a language other than English or children who are developing two or more languages, one of which may be English. DLLs make up roughly half of all California children attending preschool. Research shows that DLL children benefit when supported by educators trained in language development and culturally responsive practices across early learning settings.

In the 2017-18 school year, the state adopted the English Learner Roadmap, which outlines the state’s commitment to supporting multilingual learners, including preschool-age children. Yet the state of California lacks a coherent, sustained strategy to support educator skill development across school and non-school-based settings that serve DLLs.²Programs serving preschool-age children include, CalWORKS stages 1, 2, and 3, Alternative Payment Program, General Child Care, State Preschool, Head Start, and Transitional Kindergarten.

California’s Preschool-Age DLLs: A Demographic Overview

Tens of thousands of 3- and 4-year-old children in preschool live in homes where a language other than English is spoken. In 2023, for example, out of the estimated 377,043 children attending preschool, almost 50% lived in a home where a language other than English was spoken.³The American Community Survey defines preschool attendance as enrollment in a preschool or nursery school program. That percentage has stayed largely consistent over time, at around 50% from 2016 to 2023, as shown in the chart below. The exact number of DLLs enrolled in preschool programs is unknown due to inconsistent identification and reporting requirements across programs.⁴Currently, only the California State Preschool Program (CSPP) systematically identifies DLLs and their educational needs. Within CSPP, 58% of children are DLLs, suggesting that other programs may serve similar proportions. Recent legislation will extend DLL identification practices to some child care and development programs that also serve preschool-age children. Among those identified as DLLs, the majority (56%) are from low-income households, a characteristic that further compounds systemic barriers children and their families face.⁵A low-income household is defined as a family at or below 100% of the state median income in 2023-24, which is also the income eligibility threshold for state preschool. The large percentage of DLL children, particularly from low-income households, underscores the need to prioritize this population in early learning services, including investing in a workforce prepared to meet their linguistic and cultural needs.

The Case for State Investment in DLL Professional Development

Given the large share of California’s children who live in multilingual homes, state leaders have called for increased investments in professional development in prior efforts. State plans and reports such as California’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care, the English Learner Roadmap, the Universal PreKindergarten (UPK) Mixed Delivery Quality and Access report, and the California Assembly Blue Ribbon Commission on Early Childhood Education report recommend increasing professional development opportunities for educators across programs to better support DLLs. Across these state policy recommendations, several key themes emerge:

• Professional development is a key area to build educator capacity to support DLLs. As part of comprehensive support systems, ongoing professional development that targets the needs of specific populations should be part of capacity building strategies for all educators.
• Professional development can allow educators to center the cultural and linguistic assets of DLLs. Effectively supporting the language development of children requires a specific focus on the language and cultural assets children and their families bring with them, and professional development opportunities can provide the specific tools and skills educators can use to support children.

Investments and Gaps in Support for Educators Serving DLLs

Despite the rationale and recommendations noted above, periodic state investments in professional development for early educators have lacked consistency, scale, and equitable access for all programs across the system. Since 2017-18, when the state began reemphasizing bilingual education in state policy, a series of one-time grants included some state funding to support DLL-responsive practices. The table below shows these investments. For example, the 2021-22 budget included $100 million to increase qualified teachers and provide training in inclusive, culturally responsive, and supportive practices for State Preschool, Transitional Kindergarten, and kindergarten classrooms. While these grants have provided needed resources, no stable dedicated funding source exists to support early educators serving DLLs across all programs.

Lack of ongoing investment in these programs has been a missed opportunity for the state, as these programs have been shown to have a positive impact for DLLs in California, namely:

• Programs reach a wide range of educators. Most programs have offered professional learning to not only lead teachers, but also paraprofessionals, instructional aides, and administrators. This approach recognizes that effective bilingual and DLL instruction involves entire teams to build systemic change. 
• Professional learning strengthens educator retention. Professional development not only helps build skills, it also strengthens educators’ commitment to working in bilingual settings. 
• Programs are actively working toward more coordinated efforts to provide professional learning opportunities. Grants have fostered collaboration across agencies and programs to align resources and supports. These efforts provide examples for a more unified system, though major challenges remain.

Implications for Policymakers to Support DLLs

Given the landscape of DLL-related professional development over the past several years, coupled with the well-researched need to support educators in this area, the state’s current inconsistent investments point to key implications.

• Current investments have been uneven across early education settings. Early educators outside school systems, such as those working in centers and family child care homes, have largely been excluded from these investments. The grants included in the table above, for example, were only available to school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education. Non-school-based settings are primarily reliant on federal funds.  
• Most professional development grants are not specific to preschool. While grants may be open to preschool educators, there are often no requirements that preschool educators are prioritized. The closest approach to better targeting a broader group of educators was a 2018 allocation of $5 million to support DLL-specific training, which supported 1,400 early childhood educators. 
• One-time funding and short-term grants do not create conditions for sustained professional learning supports. One-time grants often last a few years, which may not be enough to fully implement a professional development program and meet major goals. A key element of effective professional development approaches is that it should be of sustained duration, which involves ongoing resources.
• Professional development opportunities are key to educator retention. In addition to supporting teachers with instructional practices, ongoing professional development opportunities can also create the working conditions that support educators staying in the field longer, helping address retention challenges, especially in bilingual classrooms.  
• Professional development efforts should be coupled with other systemic-wide efforts to support the workforce. Three key areas include implementing effective recruitment strategies and developing viable pathways, ensuring providers are paid fair wages, and developing the infrastructure to ensure effective implementation of professional development opportunities at the local level (e.g., building professional development into workday or ensuring substitutes are available).

California has committed to a system that ensures every child, regardless of their background, has access to high-quality early education. For DLLs — many of whom are also children from immigrant families — quality includes culturally and linguistically responsive environments. Yet, efforts to support professional development in this area have been fragmented, underfunded, and disproportionately focused on school-based settings. A high-quality, preschool mixed-delivery system must center DLL-responsive teaching and ensure all educators, across all program types, have access to sustained professional development. As federal support continues to destabilize, strong state leadership will be essential to advance a coherent path toward bilingualism for California’s youngest learners.

Laura Pryor contributed to this report.

Support for this report was provided by The Sobrato Family Foundation.