Karen D. Thompson

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.

English Learners’ Time to Reclassification An Analysis

This study uses 9 years of longitudinal, student-level data from the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide updated, empirically-based estimates of the time necessary for English learners (ELs) to become reclassified as proficient in English, as well as factors associated with variation in time to reclassification. To illustrate how different aspects of proficiency develop, estimates of the time necessary for ELs to attain six separate reclassification criteria are provided. Findings corroborate prior cross-sectional research suggesting that the development of full proficiency in a second language typically takes 4 to 7 years. However, after 9 years in the district, approximately one-fourth of students had not been reclassified. There appears to be a reclassification window during the upper elementary grades, and students not reclassified by this point in time become less likely ever to do so. Findings illustrate the crucial role that students’ initial academic language proficiencies, both in English and their primary language, play in their likelihood of reclassification. This work has implications for the design of next-generation assessment and accountability systems, as well as for instructional practices.

Is Separate Always Unequal? A Philosophical Examination of Ideas of Equality in Key Cases Regarding Racial and Linguistic Minorities in Education:

Advocates for language minority students depict the movement for language minority students’ rights as an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, which focused initially on securing rights for racial minorities. This article examines whether the same conceptions of equality and legal remedies apply for both groups. Building on Berlin’s notions of negative and positive liberty, I identify two conceptions of equality evoked in key legal cases regarding racial and linguistic minorities: negative equality, which consists of removing morally untenable discriminatory practices to ensure equality via similar treatment, and positive equality, which consists of ensuring equality by customizing treatment depending on a group’s particular needs. While these two conceptions of equality may appear at odds, I propose that the least restrictive environment standard, emanating from disability law, can serve to reconcile the two, holding that negative equality is paramount but positive equality may sometimes be necessary in time-bound, limited contexts.

Research and Policy Considerations for English Learner Equity

English learners (ELs), students from a home where a language other than English is spoken and who are in the process of developing English proficiency themselves, represent more than 10% of the U.S. student population. Oftentimes, education policies and practices create barriers for ELs to achieve access and outcomes that are equitable to those of their non-EL peers. Recent education research—often using experimental and quasi-experimental designs—provides new insights on how to evaluate EL policies, as well as how best to alter current policies to yield more equitable outcomes for ELs. Topics discussed include (a) EL classification and services, (b) language of instruction, (c) access to core content, and (d) assessments.

Evaluating English Learner Reclassification Policy Effects Across Districts

Effectively educating the large English learner population requires policymakers to ensure developmentally appropriate settings and services throughout the time students are learning English, as well as during their transition to fluent English proficient status—a process termed reclassification. Using longitudinal student-level data from two U.S. states (N = 107,549), the authors implemented recent advances in multi-site regression discontinuity designs to assess the effects of reclassification policies across districts. They found that reclassification decisions are heavily influenced by state criteria; however, there is considerable variability across districts in the extent of state-level influence. The authors also found robust evidence of between-district heterogeneity in the effects of reclassification on subsequent achievement and graduation. They discuss the implications of these findings for reclassification policies and future research on the topic. Looking toward the next century of education research, the authors discuss ways that multi-site regression discontinuity designs can be combined with qualitative research to enable policymakers and practitioners to better understand variation in effects of policies across contexts as well as the mechanisms underlying those effects.

Using an Ever–English Learner Framework to Examine Disproportionality in Special Education:

Whereas most existing research has examined the prevalence of current English learners (ELs) in special education, we propose and test the use of the ever-EL framework, which holds the subgroup of EL students stable by following all students who enter school classified as ELs. Drawing on two administrative data sets, discrete-time hazard analyses show that whereas current EL students are overrepresented in special education at the secondary level, students who enter school as ELs are significantly underrepresented in special education overall and within most disability categories. Reclassification patterns, in part, explain these findings: EL students with disabilities are far less likely than those without disabilities to exit EL services, resulting in large proportions of dually identified students at the secondary level. These findings shed new light on EL under- and overrepresentation in special education and offer insights into policies and practices that can decrease EL special education disproportionality.

What Blocks the Gate? Exploring Current and Former English Learners’ Math Course-Taking in Secondary School

This mixed-methods study couples large-scale analyses of student course-taking with case study data to explore what blocks the gate to enrollment in and successful completion of secondary math courses for students ever classified as English learners (ever ELs). Initial quantitative findings indicate that half of all students across six California districts, including ever ELs, repeated a math course between 8th and 10th grades, with limited evidence of additional learning during students’ second time in the course. Ever EL case study findings indicate that interactions between institutional (course placement policies), classroom (ways of knowing), and individual (student motivation) factors shaped students’ math course-taking trajectories, suggesting that opportunity to learn is necessary but not sufficient for educational success.

Hidden Progress of Multilingual Students on NAEP

Using National Assessment of Educational Progress data from 2003 to 2015, this brief describes changes in the reading and mathematics performance of multilingual students—defined as students who report a primary home language or languages other than English. Although all students’ scores improved, multilingual students’ scores improved two to three times more than monolingual students’ scores in both subjects in Grades 4 and 8. There was little evidence that these trends were explained by cohort changes in racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, or regional composition. These promising trends are obscured when researchers and policymakers focus only on scores for students currently classified as English learners.

Considering Interest and Action: Analyzing Types of Questions Explored by Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships

Researcher-practitioner partnerships have gained increasing prominence within education in recent years, yet scholarship on partnerships and tools to guide partnerships’ work remain in their infancy. Drawing on our own work in a partnership as well as analysis of abstracts for the 41 partnerships funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and the Spencer Foundation, we analyze the prevalence of four types of research questions—data quality, information gathering, evaluation, and design questions—within partnerships and reflect on the constraints and affordances of each question type for partnerships. We argue that explicitly considering the extent to which possible questions are of high interest and are actionable for both researchers and practitioners may increase the likelihood that the needs of both parties will be met and that partnerships can truly serve as a tool for meaningful improvement in education.