Fully Accounting for English Learner Performance: A Key Issue in ESEA Reauthorization

This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law's capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations put forth in this article focus on monitoring both current and former ELs, establishing time frames for the attainment of English language proficiency, and setting expectations for academic achievement that are reflective of English language proficiency level and time in the state's school system.Keywords: policy analysis, language comprehension/development, educational policy, accountabilit

The Redesignation Dilemma: Challenges and Choices in Fostering Meaningful Accountability for English Learners

This policy report focuses on the tensions and dilemmas surrounding one of the most common milestones used for defining and measuring English Learners’ (ELs) progress: their redesignation or reclassification from limited to fluent English proficient (FEP). Although reclassification can have important consequences for students and for the education programs that serve them—determining instructional services, performance expectations, and evaluative judgments of programs—the concept of reclassification, as currently defined and implemented, cannot credibly carry this responsibility. In fact, it may actually be contributing to educational inequity, lack of accountability, and student failure.After briefly reviewing the purposes and methods of identifying, classifying, and serving language-minority students, the report identifies three problems with the current situation. First, the complex nature of what ELs must demonstrate in order to be reclassified FEP is often poorly understood by policymakers, by educators not trained to serve this population, and by much of the general public. In school contexts, FEP is expected to connote sufficient mastery of several basic and academic language skills, and also requires meeting academic achievement standards in grade-level subject matter using English. While the latter is a necessary expectation, the consequences are significant: The common misconception that EL students only need to learn English and their academic achievement will naturally follow can hamper appropriate and timely support for them.Second, reclassification policies and procedures in many schools and districts are inadequate. Chief among the concerns examined are using standardized, norm-referenced academic achievement tests (NRTs) to “trigger” reclassification reviews. Apart from the validity issues of testing language-minority students with NRTs designed for and normed on largely monolingual English-speaking populations, using NRTs to trigger reviews can easily lead to confusion and misinterpretation about the causes of low performance and impede timely, appropriate interventions. In addition, the multiple measures used to assess the various criteria for redesignation are not administered, recorded, or reviewed regularly. Many of these measures are labor-intensive and time-consuming, and those that are not standards-based yield little of value to inform instruction. Also, most school and district databases are not currently set up to store and use these data.Third, the methods currently used to calculate reclassification rates from EL to FEP— one of the most commonly referenced statistics in assessing effectiveness of a district or school in serving English Learners—greatly distort the reality of student progress and program effectiveness, thereby diminishing accountability. The report recommends a number of strategies to improve the current situation. Among these, it argues that, beginning long before and continuing long after reclassification, a much longer trajectory of progress — in academic language development and in access to and achievement in the academic core —must be monitored, reported, and acted upon. The implications for how educators assess language-minority students, collect and analyze data, and use them to target and improve instruction are significant; so too are the responsibilities of policymakers to ensure that adequate financial, human, and technical resources are provided to improve accountability for the success of EL students.The number of English Learners in the nation’s K-12 student population has grown exponentially in recent decades, especially in states such as California, Texas, Florida and New York. Coinciding with this growth has been increased efforts to hold educators at all levels more accountable for students’ academic achievement, resulting in the most significant inclusion ever of English Learners (ELs) in both local and state assessment and accountability systems. Thus, monitoring the progress of English Learners has never been more important. The most common milestone of educational progress has been their redesignation or reclassification from an official status of English Learner (EL) or limited English proficient (LEP) to one of fluent English proficient (FEP).(1)This change in status may have important consequences for students and for the education programs that serve them. For students, a classification as EL or FEP can affect what instructional services they receive, the curriculum to which they have access, how they are assessed, and the academic performance standards to which they are held. For educators, a student’s classification should help inform how they work with and assess that student. For programs, classifications affect resource allocation, and reclassification rates influence the degree to which they are judged as effective or not. However, the concept of reclassification, as currently defined and implemented, cannot credibly carry this responsibility. In fact, it may actually be contributing to educational inequity, lack of accountability, and student failure. This policy report attempts to show why.This report begins with a brief review of the origins, purposes, and methods of identifying language-minority students and classifying some as ELs. Next, it examines several key issues that generate the tensions and dilemmas regarding reclassification. Finally, it draws some conclusions about what is needed to improve the current situation.While this report offers no easy solutions to the problems it identifies, it does attempt to provide state and local administrators and policymakers with some guidance for reviewing their current reclassification policies and procedures. Its ultimate aim is to stimulate reflection and discussion about options for building a more coherent system to better ensure academic success for English Learners and accountability for the programs that serve them._____(1) This report uses the terms English Learner (EL) as well as Limited English Proficient (LEP) since both terms are still used interchangeably by educators, in school and district documents, and in the professional literature; also, the latter term parallels other commonly used terms (e.g., FEP)

An Enormous Untapped Potential: A Study of the Feasibility of Using National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification

This report explores the feasibility of using the teacher assessment and certification process of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as the centerpiece of a comprehensive strategy to improve the professional culture and quality of teaching in low-performing schools

Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: 2003 Report

This ongoing evaluation, conducted by WestEd and the American Institutes for Research, is the largest and most comprehensive study of Proposition 227.?This five-year, legislatively mandated study focuses on the effects of Proposition 227, which requires that English learners be taught overwhelmingly in English through immersion programs not normally expected to exceed one year and permits bilingual instruction only through the granting of a special waiver

Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: 2002 Report

This ongoing evaluation, conducted by WestEd and the American Institutes for Research, is the largest and most comprehensive study of Proposition 227

Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: 2004 Report

The English Language Acquisition Program (ELAP) was established in 1999 by the California legislature to provide funds to districts to be spent on English learner instruction

Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: Findings from a Five-Year Evaluation: Final Report

How should English learners be taught? What can state and local education leaders do to better support these students' academic progress? Conclusions from a five-year evaluation have been released by a team of researchers from AIR and WestEd. The report, based on the study of 1.5 million California English learner and 3.5 million English-fluent and native-English speaking students, includes detailed findings and policy implications for education in California and nationwide