 |
|
|
The demographics of US elementary and secondary schools are changing rapidly as a result of record-high immigration, growing national origin and linguistic diversity, and immigrants’ increasing geographic dispersal. Sustained high levels of immigration have also led to a rapid increase in the number of children with immigrant parents.
Immigrants represent one in eight of all US residents and by 2010 their children will likely represent one in four of all children under age 18. While immigrant youth are often among the top performers in schools nationwide, large numbers of them have low-educated parents, come from low-income families, and arrive in US schools speaking very little English. These factors can make their path to educational success more difficult.
The growth of immigrants is mirrored in the growth of English language learner (ELL) students in US public schools (Visit our ELL Info Center for fact sheets, videos, and other resources on ELL students). In 1995, 3.3 million ELLs were enrolled in US schools and by 2008 that number had grown to 5.3 million. Federal regulations require that schools identify ELLs and implement language instruction programs for them, and that these students make yearly gains in English proficiency. In addition, ELLs must be tested in academic content areas using standardized state tests and their scores must be separately reported as a subgroup, with schools held accountable for the ELL subgroup’s performance. Amendments made in 2008 to No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) further require that by 2010-2011 all states must use a four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and disaggregate graduation rates by subgroups – including an ELL subgroup. Beginning in 2011-2012 states must include the new graduation rates and subgroup data as one of the indicators to determine Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). AYP is the central accountability mechanism of NCLB which measures student academic performance. |
|
|
|
|
Recent Research in the Field
(List Under Development) |
|
|
National Evaluation of Title III Implementation
American Institutes for Research (forthcoming)
Policy Briefs
Improving the Validity of English Language Learner Assessment Systems
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing, Policy Brief No. 10,
University of California, Spring 2010
Processes and challenges in identifying learning disabilities among students who are English language learners in three New York State districts
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands, 2010
Forbidden Language: English Learners and Restrictive Language Policies
by Patricia Gandara and Megan Hopkins, Editors
Columbia University, Teachers College Press, 2010
¿Qué Pasa? Are ELL Students Remaining in English Learning Classes Too Long?
By Edward Flores; Gary Painter; Zackary Harlow-Nash; Harry Pachon
Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, Policy Brief, October 2009
New Measures of English Language Proficiency and Their Relationship to Performance on Large-Scale Content Assessments
Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance,
Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands, 2009
Developing Reading and Writing in Second-Language Learners
Diane August and Timothy Shanahan, Editors
Center for Applied Linguistics, 2008
Teaching English language learners: What the research does—and does not—say.
Claude Goldenberg, American Educator, 32(2): 8-24, 42-44 (2008)
|
|
|
|
|
|
MPI Research |
|
|
DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries
By Jeanne Batalova and Margie McHugh
July 2010
Slightly more than 2.1 million unauthorized immigrant youth and young adults could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act legislation pending in Congress, though perhaps fewer than 40 percent would obtain legal status because of barriers limiting their ability to take advantage of the legislation's educational and military service routes to legalization. This MPI analysis offers the most recent and detailed estimates of potential DREAM Act beneficiaries by age, education levels, gender, state of residence and likelihood of gaining legalization.
Updated Estimates |Download Report | Press Release
The Binational Option: Meeting the Instructional Needs of Limited English Proficient Students
By Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix
November 2009
With 1 in 10 children in US schools having limited English proficiency, school districts across the country face challenges in meeting the students' educational needs and finding enough qualified bilingual and English as a Second Language educators. This report identifies international teacher exchanges as an innovative, near-term strategy for school administrators to respond to immediate teaching needs, particularly in subject areas where knowledge of a foreign language is necessary. In conjunction with efforts to recruit local teachers, foreign teachers can help alleviate endemic shortages — particularly in districts that face rapid, unexpected, or short-term changes in the student population.
Download Report | Press Release
Gambling
on the Future: Managing the Education Challenges of Rapid
Growth in Nevada
 By
Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix
October 2008
Nevada, the fastest growing state in the United States, is experiencing a population
boom – driven in part by immigration – that has key implications
for its school system and labor market. Immigrants represent one in five Nevada
residents and their children account for one in three Nevadans under age 18.
Yet even as schools have experienced a surge in enrollment, federal and state
investments in the state's failing education system haven't kept pace.
Download
Report | Press
Release
Los
Angeles on the Leading Edge: Immigrant Integration Indicators
and Their Policy Implications
By Michael Fix, Margie McHugh, Aaron Matteo Terrazas, and Laureen Laglagaron
April 2008
As Los Angeles makes the transition from being a city of immigrants to one dominated
by their US-born children, it can serve as a policy laboratory for other cities
facing the need to better integrate immigrants into US classrooms, workplaces,
and civic life. MPI’s report details the imperative for integration policies
that will benefit immigrants and the broader US society alike.
Download
Report | Press
Release
Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners
A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York by Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, and Julie Murray
March 2007
Educating the Children of Immigrants
By Julie Murray, Jeanne Batalova, and Michael Fix
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007 |
|
|
|
|
Selected Readings
(List Under Development) |
|
|
A Blueprint for Reform, The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
U.S. Department of Education, March 2010
Quality Counts 2009: Portrait of a Population
How English-Language Learners Are Putting Schools to the Test
Education Week, 2009
English Language Proficiency Assessment in the Nation: Current Status and Future Practice
By Jamal Abedi, Editor
University of California, Davis, School of Education, 2007
Effective Literacy and English Language
Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades
By Russell Gersten et al.
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
2007
Mexican Roots, American Schools
Helping Mexican Immigrant Children Succeed
By Robert Crosnoe
Stanford University Press, 2006
Double the Work: Challenges and Solutions
to Acquiring Language and Academic Literacy for Adolescent
English Language Learners
A Report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York by Deborah
Short and Shannon Fitzsimmons
Alliance for Excellent Education, November 2006
Who’s Left Behind? Immigrant Children in High- and Low-LEP Schools
By Clemencia Cosentino de Cohen, Nicole Deterding, and Beatriz Chu Clewell
Urban Institute, 2005
The No Child Left Behind Act and English Language Learners: Assessment and Accountability Issues
By Jamal Abedi
Educational Researcher, 33, 4-14, 2003
A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students’ Long-Term Academic Achievement
By Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia P. Collier
Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence, 2002
Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation
By Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut
University of California Press, 2001
Overlooked and Underserved: Immigrant Students in US Secondary Schools
By Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco and Michael Fix
Urban Institute, 2000 |
|
|
|
