What counts as language in schools, and who gets to decide? These questions sit at the heart of language policies, which are never just about rules on paper but about the ideologies that shape the structure of the learning environment, determined by people in power. In the US, educational language policies shifted from moments of recognition, such as the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, to periods of standardization under the No Child Left Behind Act and others. For students from linguistic minority groups, these shifts have rarely meant consistent support; more often than not, they have revealed the gap between what policies promised and what actually happened in practice. As policies continue to emphasize English-only instruction and testing, the impact falls heavily on emergent bilinguals.
García and her colleagues trace how bilingual education policies have historically been shaped more by politics than by research. Although early bilingual programs were a result of activism from communities who wanted schools to honor home languages as part of their identity, over time, federal policy emphasized rapid English acquisition. This history reveals that what constitutes 'support' for emergent bilinguals is shaped by ideology—whether schools view bilingualism as a resource or an obstacle.
This sort of ideological undercurrent is visible in everyday classroom practices. Phuong and Cioè-Peña describe how children are policed for speaking the 'wrong' way. Using Spanish in the hallway or translanguaging across English and another language in other subject classes. This kind of policing is not a neutral correction. Instead, it frames their linguistic practices as evidence of a problem. It takes such little time before students start internalizing the message that their ways of speaking are not welcome. Reading this, I remembered my peers in middle school (at an international school, but very White-oriented faculty), who hesitated to speak up, worrying about their accent or phrasing being judged.
A similar deficit framing appears in how poverty and race are connected to language. Dudley-Marling and Lucas critique the 'word gap' study, which claimed that lower SES children arrive at school linguistically deprived. They broke down how that small-sampled study became a cornerstone for interventions that tried to 'fix' families rather than schools. Yes, home learning environments go hand-in-hand with school education, but what that study really offered was a compelling explanation that blamed parents instead of asking harder questions about underfunded schools, high-stakes testing, or systemic racism.
Smith's essay transforms the rigid narrative by situating Black Englishes as a global, diasporic, and deeply multilingual way of speaking. What de facto policies would marginalize as 'nonstandard' English is seen as a foundation for critical literacy and solidarity.
Ideology, policy, and practice are tightly intertwined. Policies that claim to support students often carry deficit assumptions that echo in classrooms, where language variation, translanguaging, and other practices are policed and pathologized. However, they also suggest alternatives, including honoring bilingualism, questioning narratives that have marginalized groups, and embracing Black Englishes as multilingual resources. The challenges for schools, then, are not only to start fighting against these policies but also to nurture students who have more open minds and can critically assess the deep-rooted ideologies that continue to define some students' language as a problem rather than an asset.