Latinos accounted for three in five new workers in Metro Chicago’s
workforce over the last decade—representing a national trend that will
intensify as the growing count of young Latinos in the U.S. comes of age
(U.S. Census, 1980, 2010). To address this increasing diversity and invest
in the future, Illinois passed a mandate designed to foster bilingual skills
and early learning in young English-language learners (ELLs). Now the
Illinois early childhood education (ECE) workforce is scrambling to comply.
This situation in Illinois is indicative of two disparate, national trends: State
boards of education are embracing the importance of quality in early
childhood education as they simultaneously struggle to define what
constitutes quality for diverse, young learners.