[lg policy] New Californians Together report--Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of Educational Opportunity for California ’s Long Term English Learners

[Harold Schiffman]

Forwarded From:  edresearch at lists.isber.ucsb.edu



   EdResearch
UC Santa Barbara    Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the Unkept Promise of
Educational Opportunity for California’s Long Term English Learners

By Laurie Olsen



This report is a wake up call to California educators and policymakers to
recognize the large number of English Learner students amassing in
California secondary schools who despite many years in our schools and
despite being close to the age at which they should be able to graduate, are
still not English proficient and have incurred major academic deficits — the
“Long Term English Learners.” This publication presents new survey data
collected from 40 school districts throughout all regions of California in
2009–2010. It includes information on 175,734 secondary school students,
almost o e-third of all secondary school English Learners in the state. It
is further informed by existing research literature, and inquiries conducted
in California secondary schools. Together, these sources provide an emerging
and startling picture of students left behind, parents uninformed, educators
unaware, and districts largely stumped about what to do.



*Major findings*

   - The majority (59%) of secondary school English Learners are “Long Term
   English Learners” (in United States schools for more than six years without
   reaching sufficient English proficiency to be reclassified). In one out of
   three districts, more than 75% of their English Learners are Long Term.
   - California school districts do not have a shared definition of “Long
   Term English Learners.” Most districts lack any definition or means of
   identifying or monitoring the progress and achievement of this population.
   Only one in four districts has a formal definition or designation for
   identifying, counting, serving or monitoring services for these students —
   and their definitions vary in the number of years considered “normative” for
   how soon English Learners should have reached proficiency (range from five
   to ten years).
   - English Learners become “Long Term” English Learners in the course of
   their schooling experience. Several factors seem to contribute to becoming a
   Long Term English Learner: receiving no language development program at all;
   being given elementary school curricula and materials that weren’t designed
   to meet English Learner needs; enrollment in weak language development
   program models and poorly implemented English Learner programs; histories of
   inconsistent programs; provision of narrowed curricula and only partial
   access to the full curriculum; social segregation and linguistic isolation;
   and, cycles of transnational moves.
   - By the time Long Term English Learners arrive in secondary schools,
   there is a set of characteristics that describe their overall profile. These
   students struggle academically. They have distinct language issues,
   including: high functioning social language, very weak academic language,
   and significant deficits in reading and writing skills. The majority of Long
   Term English Learners are “stuck” at Intermediate levels of English
   proficiency or below, although others reach higher levels of English
   proficiency without attaining the academic language to be reclassified. Long
   Term English Learners have significant gaps in academic background
   knowledge. In addition, many have developed habits of non-engagement,
   learned passivity and invisibility in school. The majority of Long Term
   English Learners wants to go to college, and are unaware that their academic
   skills, record and courses are not preparing them to reach that goal.
   Neither students, their parents nor their community realizes that they are
   in academic jeopardy.

More>> <http://www.californianstogether.org/>





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