A May brief by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), “Accelerating English Learner Progress by Improving Reclassification,” offers five research-backed recommendations to improve the reclassification process and support student achievement.
In California schools, current and former (also known as reclassified) English learner (EL) students comprised a third of the K-12 population in 2025–26 — accounting for roughly 1.8 million young people.
“Each year, 160,000 new students are typically identified as requiring English language support,” according to the brief. “Because English support services are meant to be temporary, annual evaluations determine if continuing students would benefit from another year of EL instruction or if they should be reclassified out of EL services.”
Students being reclassified too early can deny them services that are necessary to their academic development, while waiting too long can stunt progress as they lose out on access to higher-level coursework and electives and even hurt their self-esteem, PPIC asserts. “The reclassification process needs to balance support with rigor,” the brief states.
As EL students’ growth “depends in large part on reclassification,” how that is done matters, the brief explains. California students must currently pass an English language proficiency assessment as well as a district-chosen test (or tests) of basic English language arts skills along with a recommendation from a teacher and parental approval to be reclassified.
However, “some of these criteria are redundant, subjective, and onerous — and have likely held some students back,” according to the brief. “Districts may also require students to exceed the minimum state requirements, and those that impose additional criteria have lower reclassification rates.”
By the time EL students who started kindergarten in California reach fifth grade, about half are reclassified and those who aren’t are classified as long-term English learners (LTELs) — students who have received EL support for six years or more.
“State laws have aimed to improve conditions and accountability for long-term ELs by requiring that districts report their number of long-term EL students and allow ELs in middle and high schools full access to standard instructional programs,” the brief notes. “Yet based on current trends, the number of long-term EL students is expected to grow because reclassification rates for younger students were so low during the pandemic. For students who are not reclassified by the end of high school, EL status is associated with poor outcomes, including lower graduation rates and less college preparation.”
Suggestions to improve reclassification
One recommendation outlined by PPIC to improve processes around reclassification is simplifying and standardizing reclassification criteria. The organization suggests California join two dozen other states that use one assessment to reclassify EL students and don’t consider criteria related to teachers or parents.
“Requiring EL students to pass separate assessments for English language proficiency and basic skills creates unnecessary barriers to student progress. Currently, reclassification often requires more than two assessments, with 82 percent of districts reporting using at least two assessments for basic skills in addition to the English proficiency assessment,” the brief says. “However, since 2018, the assessments to measure English language proficiency and basic skills in English language arts have been aligned and thus are largely redundant. Even before this alignment, research indicated that requiring multiple reclassification criteria provided little additional predictive value beyond having one requirement that was aligned to English language arts standards.”
Research suggests that teacher evaluations have proven to be subjective and overly time consuming in some cases, with inconsistent implementation. Additionally, parental input has seldom been used as intended.
The brief also suggests automating reclassification to lower barriers and reduce administrative burdens. Following the determination that a student should be reclassified, districts typically must manually change their status.
“Our recent survey asked districts how much time this takes and found that, for every student who met the reclassification criteria, district staff spent an average of 32.6 minutes changing their status in all relevant data systems. With approximately 100,000 students reclassified last year, this amounts to 71,000 hours in total,” according to PPIC. “The lag between when a student meets reclassification requirements and inputting the new status in all relevant data systems is greater than a month for almost half of districts (46.5 percent).”
In the meantime, course enrollment decisions can be impacted, hindering students’ ability to take higher-level classes. The manual component also leaves room for incorrect records and/or bias.
Establishing meaningful paths to reclassification for those in special education would also be beneficial, the brief explains, as about 18 percent of ELs and 28 percent of LTELs have individualized education programs (IEPs). “Designing sensible reclassification policies for such ‘dual-identified’ students has long been a challenge for the state and districts,” according to PPIC.
In 2025, the California Department of Education published new guidance regarding reclassification requirements for ELs with disabilities that have drawn concern from school districts in a subsequent survey due to its lack of flexibility.
While previously, IEP teams could modify reclassification requirements, the 2025 guidance made it so only students who have “severe cognitive disabilities” are able to take an alternative English language proficiency test and other students with disabilities must take the standard assessment with approved accommodations (IEP teams can’t exempt them from the requirement to pass).
“Efforts to create new reclassification policies for dual-identified students must be fair to students and applied uniformly across districts; they must not be burdensome for teachers, IEP teams, and districts to implement,” the brief states.
A possible solution suggested by survey respondents would be to let students with an IEP reclassify with a lower score on the assessment. “Though this process would be neither automated nor standardized, it would apply to a small subset of students … This could be a workable solution if a student’s IEP team feels it is appropriate, the decision is supported by coursework or other assessments, and reclassification occurs in conjunction with enhanced monitoring.”
Other proposals detailed in the brief include better defining and funding monitoring and more frequent and transparent communication with families.
