New York State Education Department Office of Bilingual Education Director's Files

Arranged into subseries by subject, then arranged alphabetically within subseries.

The Office of Bilingual Education (OBE) was established in 1969 as the unit within the New York State Education Department (NYSED) which provides support to districts in developing and implementing educational programs for limited English proficient (LEP) students. In early 2006, Foreign Language Studies (FLS) was added to the department title, and today the department is known as the Office of Bilingual Education and Foreign Language Studies (OBEFLS). The office assists districts in complying with Part 154 of the Commissioner of Education's Regulations, which requires districts to adopt a policy on the education of LEP students, plan and provide appropriate services for them, and evaluate and report their academic achievement.

Carmen Perez-Hogan was director of the Office of Bilingual Education from 1978 to 2005. Prior to her years as director, she was a teacher and administrator in the New York City public schools for 11 years, and was briefly leader of a bilingual teacher training initiative at the State University of New York at Albany.

This series consists of correspondence, conference materials, printouts of presentation slides, speech materials, meeting agendas and minutes, clippings, and other materials collected by Carmen A. Perez-Hogan during her time as director of the Office of Bilingual Education of the New York State Education Department. These materials reveal the role of the Office of Bilingual Education in influencing and shaping New York State and federal policy and opinion on the education of English-language learners. In addition, they document the office's everyday role in implementing various grant programs for funding bilingual education in New York State.

Some of the materials relate to "Memoranda of Understanding" between the New York State Education Department and the governments of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. These memoranda served to define cooperative efforts by these parties to ensure the education of Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants to the United States. These involved greater information sharing, exchanging of curricula and instructional materials, and teacher and principal exchange programs. The materials include the final texts and drafts of the memoranda, correspondence documenting the signing of the memoranda, printouts of slides from a presentation that Perez-Hogan made for a 2002 education summit between New York State and the Dominican Republic, and agenda of meetings taken during trips to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Also included in the series are various grant-related materials. These include requests for proposals for the Bilingual/ESL Technical Assistance Center program, which funds programs providing resources and training to bilingual/ESL teachers; as well as materials documenting Two-Way Bilingual Education Programs, which integrate non-English speaking students with English-speakers in a dual-language instruction environment. Also included are applications submitted by the New York State Education Department to the United States Department of Education for funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Within the series are documents that show the interaction between the Office of Bilingual Education and the Board of Regents, state and national legislators, and the federal government. Many of these documents relate to controversial issues at the state and national level regarding bilingual education, including efforts to make English the official language of the United States, as well as plans by the Office of Bilingual Education to revise their guidelines for the education of Creole-speaking immigrants from countries where English was the official language, which were derided by some outside observers as unnecessary. Also included among these documents are talking points written by Perez-Hogan and other Office of Bilingual Education staff members for the benefit of members of the Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education. In addition, the collection contains programs, slides, clippings, and other materials related to presentations made by Carmen Perez-Hogan at various conferences, including the New York State Summit on Bilingualism in the 21st Century and the Office of English Language Acquisition summit hosted by the United States Department of Education.

B1954Series B1954, Office of Bilingual Education Videocassettes, 1986-2003, contains related records.

A Spanish version of this finding aid is available.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this series.