English Learners

Over the past 20 years, federal K-12 education policies have made positive strides in using data to make sure schools monitor the progress of student subgroups, not just the average student, according to a new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, an affiliate of the nonprofit business advocacy organization.

While No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act-era accountability and assessment policies have led to overall increased student achievement, the report said, reforms fell short of improving outcomes for all students at all schools. 

The study also highlights ongoing unknowns, such as how characteristics and context of organizations impact reforms and why attention to effective teacher preparation programs was largely left out of these federal policies.

The review of landmark education policies over the past two decades is part of the foundation's Future of Data, Assessments, and Accountability in K-12 Education initiative, a multi-year effort to look into the effectiveness of data and assessments in public schools.

The initiative has "revealed what we know and do not know about the last 20 years of federal education policy and lays the groundwork to develop a framework to improve the system for all of America's students," said Cheryl Oldham, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber Foundation, in a statement.   

This analysis and review can be a reference point for future reauthorizations of ESSA, the report said. ESSA’s passage in 2015 reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, replacing the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.

The report said that between 2001 and 2015, federal education policy expanded in "new and important ways." For example, No Child Left Behind was vital in bringing the disaggregation of performance data for students with disabilities, students of color, English learners and other student populations.

Although research into NCLB and connected reforms like Race to the Top can't show the full picture of progress on some nonacademic measures, the law's legacy of accountability on behalf of diverse learners and for data-based decision making are traits that even testing critics said holds value, the report said. 

The quantitative research review was authored by Dan Goldhaber and Michael DeArmond of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data In Education Research at the American Institutes for Research. Chris Stewart and a team at Brightbeam, a nonprofit focused on improving education, wrote the qualitative analysis.

Schools in states with mandates for gifted and talented education have higher rates of participation for English learners and students with disabilities in those programs, according to a paper released March 16 from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

While both groups of students are substantially underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, the study conducted by NWEA found schools with 10 or more English learners are 24 percentage points more likely to offer gifted services if there was a state mandate. Schools with 10 or more students with disabilities were 27 percentage points more likely to have gifted programming with a state requirement.

The findings highlight the importance of state policies for the access and equity of gifted programs. The research also serves as a caution for educators and policymakers who assume eliminating gifted or honors programs would resolve disparities in those services, said the study's co-author Scott Peters, a senior research scientist at NWEA, an education assessment and research nonprofit. 

English learners and students with disabilities are identified for gifted programs at much lower rates — about 13% and 17%, respectively — compared to their representation in the overall student population, according to the study.

Using data from the most recent Civil Rights Data Collection, the Stanford Education Data Archive and researchers' own analysis of state policies for gifted and talented education, they found states with policies for gifted education, district requirements for service plans, and regular audits for compliance had notably higher rates of gifted services and inclusion of English learners and students with disabilities. 

In addition to examining state policies, the study also looked at school characteristics. It found the top 5% of schools with the highest levels of equity for English learners in gifted programs were relatively low-achieving and had higher enrollments of students from low-income families. 

Of the 1,450 schools with the highest levels of inclusion of English learners in gifted programs, a large portion — 407— were in Texas. Peters said it's unclear why Texas has such a high rate of identification of English learners in gifted programs, but it may be due to the state's abundance of gifted education policies and funding, as well as a high overall population of English learners.

The top 5% of schools with inclusion of students with disabilities in gifted courses, who are also known as twice-exceptional students, were similar in size and achievement to the overall sample but tended to be smaller than the average school and had smaller gifted enrollments.

State policies or mandates have "a pretty huge effect in context of, on average, what percentage of schools provide access. That's pretty massive," Peters said.

Researchers also found that in states where gifted and talented governance fell under the direction of the special education department or was otherwise connected to the state's special education or exceptional services, there were higher rates of inclusion of students with disabilities in gifted and talented programming.

Of the seven states with links between gifted and special education governance or policy, four had more than 100 schools showing high levels of inclusion of students with disabilities in gifted programs. Those states are Kansas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia.

As debates take place across the country regarding the equitable benefits and drawbacks of offering gifted and honors classes, Peters said this research shows state-related gifted education policies can help open access to underserved students who may not have opportunities to take advanced coursework outside of school. 

"The problem is if you get rid of everything, yes, on paper, enrollments are the same across groups. They're all zeros," Peters said. "Getting rid of these services isn't quite the equity victory some people think this is.”

Tucked in California Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed education budget is $1 million to develop a Literacy Roadmap that would include "explicit instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, and other decoding skills, as well as development of vocabulary, comprehension, writing, speaking, and listening skills."

Separately, the National Student Support Accelerator conducted research into a kindergarten literacy tutoring program that provides "short bursts" of instruction in phonics and reading fluency, finding students who participated were over two times more likely than their peers to reach a targeted reading stage at the end of the year.

In an effort to boost academic outcomes and make up for pandemic learning losses, local and state school systems are evaluating current literacy instructional methods, reviewing achievement data, and advocating for curriculum and instruction that are aligned with science-based reading approaches. 

There's momentum driving the adoption of strategies for teaching foundational reading skills, including the emphasis on skills needed to sound out letters to make words, learn sight words and read fluently. It's difficult, however, to quickly switch from one approach to another. What and how to teach and how and when to conduct professional development are just a few of the details to sort out.

In California, state leaders set a goal that, by 2026, all students will read by the 3rd grade. That effort is being driven by a statewide literacy task force, whose work will include consideration of reading research for all students, including English learners, those with disabilities, struggling readers and young students. 

"When students don’t learn to read by third grade, they are at greater risk to drop out of school and end up in the criminal justice system," said Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, in a Jan. 10 statement. 

Disappointing results from reading assessments over the past few years are helping to fuel a new focus on reading instruction. While some research shows recent year-over-year reading proficiency increasing, a recent Amplify analysis of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) performance outcomes finds 32% of kindergartners this school year are behind in reading and are in need of intensive interventions. 

Also driving new attention and investments into reading instruction are significant amounts of federal COVID-19 relief funds. Several state agencies plus 35 of the nation’s 100 largest school districts planned to use money from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds for literacy training, researchers from FutureEd at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy told K-12 Dive last fall.

North Carolina, for example, set aside $12 million of the state’s ESSER share for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, or LETRS. The funding will go toward a professional development course for elementary educators to support their knowledge of the foundations for reading instruction, including phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, writing and language.

An updated analysis of equitable school funding practices finds substantially less state and local revenue going to districts with the most Black, Latino, and Native students versus those with the fewest students of color. The difference can be as much as $2,700 per student, or $13.5 million for a district with 5,000 students, according to a report released Dec. 8 by The Education Trust. 

Ed Trust, a nonprofit that advocates for equitable policies and practices in education, also unveiled an interactive data tool that allows users to search funding levels and comparisons by school, district and state levels. The tool disaggregates data by demographics such as students of color, English learners and students from low-income backgrounds.

The report and data tool will hopefully jump-start conversations about inequities in school funding across schools within districts, said Ivy Morgan, director of P-12 data and analytics for Ed Trust. Analysis of national and state funding practices should help educators, advocates and community members identify and find solutions to inequities in state and local funding practices, Morgan said during a pre-release briefing on Monday.

"Money matters in education," said Morgan. "And particularly when school funding formulas [and] funding systems provide substantial additional resources to support the needs of English learners [and] students from low-income backgrounds, we see improved outcomes for those students."

The report promotes not just equal levels of funding between student groups but "a significant amount of additional funding" for certain student groups, including those with disabilities. 

It also notes that while districts and states have received significant amounts of federal COVID-19 emergency funding, those revenues will run out. To prevent an abrupt end to supports for high-need communities, education leaders need to address funding disparities now, the report said.

For example, the report suggests two to three times more funding for students from low-income backgrounds than for students from higher-income families. 

Nearly all states provide less than 50% more in funding for low-income students. Only two states — Maryland and Massachusetts — use funding formulas that appear to allocate nearly twice as much for students from low-income backgrounds under certain circumstances.

The report builds on a 2018 report from Ed Trust that found “devastatingly large” funding gaps in some states, as well as areas of progress.

To analyze the state of funding equity across the nation and within each state, researchers used data on state, local and federal revenues and overall student enrollment from the 2018, 2019 and 2020 U.S. Census Bureau’s Public Elementary-Secondary Education Finance Data files, among other resources. Several states were omitted in certain state-by-state funding analyses for various reasons, such as low populations of English learners.

Other findings from the research include:

• Students of color. Nearly half of states (22) had districts serving the most students of color where they received less state and local revenue per-student than districts serving the fewest students of color. The report highlighted six states — Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina and Rhode Island — where districts that served the most students of color received 10% to 22% less state and local funding than districts serving the fewest students of color.
• English learners. The districts with the most English learners had 14% less state and local revenue, or $2,200 less per student, compared with districts with the fewest English learners. In two states — Missouri and Colorado — districts with the most English learners got substantially more state and local funding than districts with the fewest English learners.
• High-poverty students. State and local revenue for high-poverty districts averaged 5%, or about $800, less per student than for low-poverty districts. In 37 states, there were districts with the highest concentrations of students from low-income backgrounds that were not receiving substantially more funding than more wealthy districts in the state. According to Ed Trust, an additional $800 per student at a 500-student school would cover the cost of hiring three new teachers or purchasing a laptop for every student.

The report also emphasizes that funding is just one part of the education picture. District and state education leaders need to verify that students have fair access to resources such as strong teachers with diverse backgrounds and rigorous coursework, as well as school environments that are physically safe and emotionally supportive, the report said.

Better data collection and resources for schools serving "newcomers" — students who are new to the U.S and who may or may not speak English — are being planned, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition said in a recent letter to a leader of a coalition of educators, researchers and advocacy organizations.

About 80 representatives of the coalition wrote to the Education Department in August with recommendations they said would better serve newcomer students and their educators. The coalition said current curricula, professional development, data, funding and guidance for newcomer education are lacking.

Coalition members and others are calling for more attention and support for this student population as schools and communities experience an increase in English learner populations, along with recent arrivals of refugee and unaccompanied children. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 108,000 unaccompanied children were released to sponsors between Oct. 1, 2021, and July 2022. 

The Education Department's Oct. 21 letter, signed by Montserrat Garibay, acting assistant deputy secretary and director of OELA, acknowledges that challenges remain regarding data definitions and curriculum for newcomer students. The department, however, is prohibited from dictating certain curriculum in schools, Garibay noted.

While the department collects information on students who meet the definition of "immigrant" under the department's Title III, Part A grant program, up-to-date information is not currently available in a public format. The department plans to add state-level data to its ED Data Express website later this year for the 2020-21 school year, Garibay's letter said. 

A Biennial Report to Congress on Title III, published in October 2021, contains 2016-2018 data. For the 2017-18 school year, the number of immigrant students approached 1 million.

The Education Department’s letter outlined other moves planned or taken. For instance, the department said it is revising its Newcomer Toolkit, which was last updated in 2017. OELA also hosted an Aug. 12 webinar on registering and enrolling refugee and immigrant students in secondary schools.  

Sam Finn, a senior policy consultant for the Oakland Unified School District in California and former teacher who has researched newcomer student issues, is helping to lead the coalition of professionals and advocates on behalf of newcomer students and their families and educators. Garibay's letter was addressed to Finn.

Overall, Finn said, the Education Department's letter responding to the coalition's concerns fell flat. The letter didn't directly respond to their recommendations, including one to create a separate data point for newcomers separate from those for immigrants and students identified as English learners, he said.

“They do not engage with the fact that newcomers are hurt by an absence from standard data systems as a distinct subgroup. Newcomers are inadequately educated in part because they are lumped in with the much larger 'English learner' group, in which the average student actually speaks functional English," Finn said.

Additionally, Finn said the letter did not address or offer a solution to concerns over inadequate instructional resources for teachers of newcomers. 

"Rather than responding to a call for leadership and support, with plans for leadership and support, the letter largely lists things that the department is already doing that the field did not find adequate to support their needs," he said.

Finn, however, said he was encouraged by two things: the department's offer to consider holding a gathering for those working to improve newcomer student services, and its willingness to look into increasing research around this population of students. 

"If they do act on those, then [our] letter will have been a success," Finn said.

To better support K-12 services for incoming immigrant and refugee students, a few federal policy and financial adjustments are needed, according to a report from Next 100, a progressive policy think tank.  

Among the report's recommendations is a call to undo limitations for subgrant funding dedicated to English learners and immigrant students in Title III, and to instead establish a formula grant system for Title III immigrant subgrants. The report also urges the U.S. Department of Education to formally define immigrant students for consistency across states and districts.

The growth in the English learner population, as well as recent arrivals of refugee and unaccompanied children, makes this a critical issue for educators, according to the report. About 108,000 unaccompanied children were released to sponsors between Oct. 1, 2021, and July 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"As the first major institution that students encounter upon their arrival to the U.S., it is our duty to equip schools with meeting that challenge for every child to thrive," writes the report's author, Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a policy entrepreneur at Next 100.

Increases in English learners, immigrant and refugee students have prompted districts and their communities to strategize on how to coordinate academic, housing, nutrition and other services. 

The New York City Department of Education, for instance, last month initiated "Project Open Arms" to provide wraparound services for newcomer children and their families. The school system is expecting at least 1,000 children of asylum seekers, including preschoolers, to enroll in city schools this academic year. 

Also in August, a national group of 80 educators, researchers, parents and advocacy organizations asked the Education Department to build awareness and support for newcomer students by setting common data collection definitions, providing curriculum resources and professional development, and holding a national conference to encourage collaboration for student supports.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for purposes of Title III grant allocations, currently defines ”immigrant children and youth″ as individuals ages 3-21 who were not born in any U.S. state and have not been attending schools in one or more states for more than three full academic years. 

The Next 100 report said today's funding method caps Title III Immigrant subgrants at 15%, which allows states to allocate less than that amount and hampers districts' abilities to access sufficient funding. 

States can reserve no more than 15% of their total allocation for Title III Immigrant subgrants to districts that have experienced a significant increase in the percentage or number of immigrant children and youth, as compared to the average of the two preceding fiscal years.

That increase is defined by each state education agency and adjusted as needed each year. The remaining funds are distributed as Title III English Language Acquisition formula subgrants based on the number of English learners in each district.

By standardizing these allocations, districts would be better able to plan for long-term sustainability of resources immediately when newcomer immigrant students arrive, as well as throughout their first years in U.S. schools, the report said.

The federal emergency money provided to school systems to help with COVID-19 recovery efforts offers several model lessons on how districts used part of their allocations to support newcomer students, the report said. 

For example, according to an American Rescue Plan budget for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, the district planned to hire a coordinator for unaccompanied minors at $226,092 for two years. The coordinator would organize school-based services, learning programs and connect students and their families or sponsors to wraparound supports, among other services, according to the district's spending plan.