The Seal of Biliteracy by Logan Rutten
The Seal of Biliteracy is an award that can be earned by high school graduates who have become biliterate by achieving proficiency in English and at least one other world language (Seal of Biliteracy, 2018). Each state that awards a Seal develops its own requirements, and the Seal is typically affixed to the high school diplomas of students who meet their state’s criteria. In 2011, California became the first state to adopt a Seal, and in November 2017, Massachusetts became the most recent. This brings the total states with a recognized Seal of Biliteracy to twenty-nine, plus the District of Columbia. Ten additional states are currently exploring creating their own Seals (Seal of Biliteracy, 2018).
Establishing a Seal of Biliteracy is one way states can respond to a clear economic demand for interculturally competent employees that has received little recognition by the federal government. A recent study in California found that 66 percent of businesses prefer multilingual over monolingual candidates, with other factors being comparable (Gandara, 2014). Furthermore, in an extensive nationwide survey, 41 percent of employers reported giving preference to biliterate applicants when making hiring decisions (Damari et al., 2017). After being hired, biliterate employees, particularly those in the private sector, earn salaries ranging from two percent to as much as 12 percent more than their monolingual counterparts, even if they do not use their second language in the workplace (Christofides & Swidinsky, 2006).
Despite the evidence that biliteracy is in high demand, federal educational policies have prioritized other goals. In particular, recent policies, including former President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative, have privileged spending on the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics above funding for world languages and the arts. President Trump renewed the Obama administration’s preference for STEM in September 2017 when he issued a memo directing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to prioritize at least $200 million in grants funding STEM programs and specifically computer science programs supporting women and minorities in preparation for high-demand careers in the applied sciences (Kullgren & Emma, 2017). Worthy as STEM funding may be, such measures constitute an incomplete response to the modern demands of the global STEM market because they build students’ technical abilities without also growing the intercultural communication and world language skills that are needed in diverse workplaces.
The Seal of Biliteracy has the potential to affirm students’ efforts to become biliterate while still in high school and also improve their prospects after graduation. In particular, for students who are native or heritage speakers of another language, working toward a Seal of Biliteracy enables a stronger connection with their families’ cultural heritage and can validate their skills and identities while in high school (Walker, 2017). After graduating, a key benefit of the program is that a Seal can make a powerful statement to potential employers and to admission committees of colleges and universities, where the expectation for extended study of world languages prior to enrolling continues to grow. Minnesota and Illinois support this expectation by requiring that state universities grant college credit to students who matriculate with the Seal on their high school transcripts (Davin & Heineke, 2017).
[B]iliterate employees, particularly those in the private sector, earn salaries ranging from two percent to as much as 12 percent more than their monolingual counterparts.
A recent study found variations in proficiency requirements among the states that have implemented a Seal of Biliteracy (Davin & Heineke, 2017). Some states award a Seal for maintaining a minimum GPA over four years of world language study at the high school level. In other states, students must reach a prescribed score on one of several common assessments of world language proficiency. Some of the most common options include the proficiency exams of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the College Board’s AP exams, or the International Baccalaureate (IB) exams. The typical minimum level in the world language to obtain a Seal of Biliteracy is Intermediate-Mid on a proficiency exam correlated to ACTFL standards. Fortunately, nearly all states meet or exceed this minimum, with only North Carolina having slightly lower cutoff scores (Davin & Heineke, 2017).
Some states use their Seal of Biliteracy programs to set innovative and high expectations for learning world languages. Minnesota established particularly rigorous criteria by creating multiple levels for students to earn a Seal, with gold-level and platinum-level Seals for students who reach near-native levels of proficiency or are multilingual (Davin & Heineke, 2017). Among the most exacting standards are those of the District of Columbia, which specifies that students complete at least two years of high school study with a minimum GPA of 2.5 and meet proficiency exam cutoff scores. In addition, District of Columbia students are required to demonstrate intercultural competence through involvement in a community where the target language is spoken, such as by volunteering, study abroad, or completing a service learning project (Davin & Heineke, 2017). Despite the potential challenges inherent in the lack of standardization across state lines, comprehensive world language programs such as those in the District of Columbia indicate that the Seal could be a powerful force for simultaneous renewal, with world language programs in schools giving back to the communities that support them.
While extended world language study at the high school level may be valuable, fulfilling seat time requirements is no guarantee that a student will be proficient in the language or ready for college-level language study by the time of graduation. High school credit requirements for earning the Seal are an initial step toward proficiency. However, attainment of high levels of proficiency by the time of graduation typically requires an introduction to the language many years before students enroll in high school. Unfortunately, there are vast inequities among students’ access to a rigorous world language sequence that spans their entire K-12 experiences, which places proficiency out of reach for many (Davin & Heineke, 2017). Therefore, a secondary benefit of the program is that the Seal has highlighted the need for increased attention to equity through significant investment from departments of education and local school boards to make quality world language programs available to all learners regardless of their ZIP codes.
As with the Seal’s criteria for the second language, adopting states have each specified their own standards for English proficiency (Davin & Heineke, 2017). For this reason, the Seal of Biliteracy is not a controversial attempt to supplant English as the primary language of instruction, nor is it a backdoor effort to replace programs of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) with non-English instruction in states where the taxpayers disapprove. In fact, despite variations across state lines, local control is one of the program’s strengths, allowing the Seal of Biliteracy to be a point of bipartisan collaboration toward meeting each state’s unique needs for skilled multilingual employees. The remaining states that have not yet implemented a Seal of Biliteracy should look to the examples set by Minnesota and the District of Columbia to initiate quality programs to support world languages in their schools. At the federal level, without retreating from its work to support growth in the STEM fields, it is time for President Trump’s administration and the U.S. Department of Education to increase investment in world languages to match the value they bring to the 21st-century economy.
References
Christofides, L. N., & Swidinsky, R. (2006). Language in the public service. Industrial Relations, 45(3), 326-347.
Damari, R. R., Rivers, W. P., Brecht, R. D., Gardner, P., Pulupa, C., & Robinson, J. (2017). The demand for multilingual human capital in the U.S. labor market. Foreign Language Annals, 50(1), 13-37.
Davin, K. J., & Heineke, A. J. (2017). The seal of biliteracy: Variations in policy and outcomes. Foreign Language Annals, 50(3), 486-499.
Gandara, P. (2014). The value of bilingualism and the seal of biliteracy in the California labor market. Retrieved from http:// www.calsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ Value-of-Bilingualism-UCLA.pdf
Kullgren, I. & Emma, C. (2017, September 25). Trump directs $200 million to tech education for women and minorities. Politico. Retrieved from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/25/trump-stem-technology-grants-women-minorities-243115
Seal of Biliteracy. (2018). State laws regarding the Seal of Biliteracy. Retrieved from http://www.sealofbiliteracy.org
Walker, A. C. (2017, June 19). Madison school district celebrates its first class of graduates to earn state’s new seal of biliteracy. The Capital Times. Retrieved from http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/madison-school-district-celebrates-its-first-class-of-graduates-to/article_e4df900e-a945-5019-9fcf-46e403c29d61.html
Logan Rutten is a Ph.D. student in Curriculum and Supervision at Penn State University. A classicist and musician, he has taught grades K-12 in public, charter, and cyber schools. He has also worked as an assessment coordinator for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Logan’s current research interests include supervision as a form of inquiry, instructional coaching, teacher evaluation systems, and charter school finance. He earned a B.A. at Concordia College and the M.Ed. from Penn State.
