Investigating Educational Outcomes for Providence Community Advocacy

Abstract

Education systems in multilingual communities face unique challenges, particularly when balancing equity and accessibility for students of diverse linguistic backgrounds. Within Providence, a city heavily comprised of Latin American, as I am, and English as a Second Language populations (ESL/ELL), Early-Ed students are struggling to meet the appropriate proficiency standards. Using data analysis methods present in R, we investigated the discrepancies of ELL and Non-ELL student performances under a variety of factors. The results obtained showed that on each test, ELL students performed significantly worse, even including the long-term solutions of Charter Schools and Takeovers. These findings underscore the failures of the Takeover and Charter Schools as an equitable solution to increase performance for all students. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of restructuring the pedagogy present in Providence and creating more effective solutions for all students of all demographics