Reconceptualizing quality education for multilingual students with disabilities

Abstract

Currently, a quality education for multilingual learners in the United States has been
reduced to how quickly students can learn English so they can be absorbed into general
education content classrooms (Viesca, 2013). In part, as with multilingual learners, educating
students with disabilities focuses on providing students with an individualized education to
remedy their disabilities and as soon as possible transition them to a general education
classroom. We suggest there is a need to reconceptualize current approaches to educating
multilingual learners and students with disabilities to build an education that will maximize
their learning opportunities and potential rather than act as an attempt to fix perceived
deficiencies (i.e., English and disabilities) in order to normalize students as quickly as possible.