I still remember a student I taught in Virginia early in my career. He was maybe 13 or 14, and he’d come to this country on a raft. People died on that journey. When he arrived, he couldn’t read in English or in Spanish, but showed up to class every single day, determined to learn.
That young man is one of thousands of English learner students I’ve worked with over two decades as a teacher, principal and Virginia’s Secretary of Education. These students are capable of making multi-year academic gains in a single school year and represent some of the most motivated learners in our classrooms.
The question isn’t whether they can succeed. It’s whether we’re equipping their teachers with the tools to help them.
As a middle school principal, I made literacy our school’s non-negotiable priority. If public education could give just one gift to every student, it should be the ability to read and comprehend what they’re reading. Everything else depends on that foundation.
Therefore, every teacher is a literacy teacher. Every teacher should understand strategies to help students deconstruct texts. You can’t teach students who can’t access the reading.
But we quickly discovered that our general literacy strategies weren’t enough for English learner students. They lacked literacy skills in their native language and were learning to read while simultaneously learning a new language.
Our teachers felt underprepared. Rightfully so, because most of them were. Students who can’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. That number is even higher for English learners.
When we pushed our middle school to ensure all incoming sixth graders could write a three-paragraph essay, it seemed reasonable — until we realized the five feeder elementary schools had wildly different standards. One had fifth graders writing five-paragraph essays; others were still working on basic sentences.
Those sixth-grade teachers inherited classrooms full of students at completely different levels, and that was just among kids who spoke English as their first language.
Now layer in English learners arriving from China, Africa, Central America, the Caribbean. Students coming through refugee resettlement programs. Young people who’d left war-torn regions where survival, not schooling, had been the priority.
As Secretary of Education, I saw this challenge statewide. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress data confirmed it: Fourth grade English learners face a 39 point reading achievement gap compared to their peers, the largest of any student group.
Those aren’t just data points. They’re children sitting in classrooms right now.
Students come to reading through different pathways. About 5 percent are natural readers. Another 20-30 percent learn through direct instruction. But between 30 and 50 percent need explicit, intensive instruction. And 5 to 20 percent find reading one of the most difficult skills to master.
English learners often fall into those last two categories, but not because they lack ability. They need explicit instruction, scaffolded support and teachers who understand that literacy development looks different when you’re learning a new language.
The problem is that most educator preparation programs don’t teach these strategies. We’re asking teachers to figure it out on their own.
Virginia recognized this gap and created three literacy support networks for struggling student populations. One focuses on ensuring all teachers understand evidence-based literacy practices. The second supports students with disabilities.
The third — the English Learner Network, which my organization, The Hunt Institute, helped develop — specifically equips educators to support language learners.
Through this network, schools receive training from national experts, analyze student data and develop action plans tailored to their communities. Teachers learn practical, research-based strategies they can use immediately.
And it’s working. One elementary school piloted a co-teaching model pairing English learner specialists with general education teachers. Another division created dedicated literacy intervention time. Teachers across the network said they felt more confident identifying where students were struggling and how to help.
Students participating in the Virginia English Learner Network improved nearly four percentage points more than students in non-participating schools. High school students showed the greatest gains, with passage rates improving by 18 percentage points.
This is what real teacher support looks like: practical tools, collaborative problem-solving and recognition that different students need different approaches.
If I could talk to my younger self as a new teacher, or to teachers working with English learners now, I’d say this:
Our students have extraordinary grit. They want to learn and contribute. Our job is to make sure we’re equipped to help them succeed. That means states must invest not just in literacy laws, but in the networks and training that bring those policies to life.
Nearly 70 percent of eighth graders nationally are not proficient readers. For English learners, the challenge is steeper. But our students have already proven they can overcome extraordinary obstacles.
The question is whether we’ll meet them halfway by raising the level of support we provide their teachers.
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