A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                      Contact:  Jim Bradshaw    March 16, 1994                                     (202) 401-2310 

DANG T. PHAM NAMED DEPUTY BILINGUAL EDUCATION DIRECTOR

Dang T. Pham has been named by U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley as deputy director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs. The department's bilingual education office administers a $227 million program to support bilingual and immigrant education efforts nationwide.

Pham most recently served as educational programs director for the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants. A Vietnamese native and former bilingual education teacher in the Boston Public Schools, Pham will assume the number two post in the department's bilingual office.

"Dang represents one of the fastest growing language groups in the country," Riley said. "We are fortunate to have someone with his rich background in education and refugee affairs."

Census Bureau figures show that from 1979-89 the number of Vietnamese speakers age 5 or older increased to 241,000 - a 153 percent jump. Only Korean and Asian Indian languages recorded a higher rise.

Pham graduated from high school in Saigon in 1974 and attended Minh Duc University before emigrating to the United States. He received a bachelor's degree in managerial economics from Rhode Island College in 1979 and a master's degree in education from Boston College in 1982.

Since 1987, he has been at the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants where he coordinated the Statewide Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program. In that position, he found placements for refugee children in foster homes and arranged cross-cultural education, mental health counseling, citizenship education and other immigration services.

In the early 1980s, Pham was a bilingual education teacher at Brighton High School in Boston, where he helped set up a Vietnamese bilingual education program. He also taught math, physics and social studies.

Pham chaired the 1993 conference of the National Association for Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans in Boston. He also headed the Massachusetts Asian American Unity Committee in 1991 and served as a commissioner of the Boston Fair Housing panel.

Pham was a member of the National Asian Pacific American Advisory Council of the Democratic National Committee and chaired the Vietnamese American Committee for Clinton/Gore in Massachusetts in 1992.

He has been a guest speaker on refugee resettlement issues, community development, and cross-cultural issues at various conferences.