The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a report in August that aims to help state and local education officials better understand and adapt to changes in California’s English learner (EL) population.
Almost 20 percent of students statewide are ELs, and nearly 40 percent of all TK-12 youth speak a language other than English at home. While over 80 percent of ELs speak Spanish, other top languages are Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Arabic (each representing 2 percent or less of the total number of ELs, according to PPIC.
Researchers noted that overall, EL enrollment continues to shrink and is now 15 percent lower than in 2015. This decline alongside increasing diversity among ELs may require districts to adjust their bilingual program offerings.
Additionally, the pandemic challenged local educational agencies’ ability to identify new students who needed English learning instruction or current ELs who no longer needed services, and also made it more difficult to provide instructional services, leading students to remain classified as ELs longer than in the past.
“The period of remote instruction took a toll on the rates of EL students who were Reclassified Fluent English Proficient (RFEP). Our estimates suggest that while overall reclassification rates have rebounded, the share of ever-EL students who are currently reclassified is below pre-pandemic levels,” the report states. “Districts reported real struggles in just reaching students during remote instruction, especially the youngest of children, and reclassification was not a priority in all districts. Many districts have doubled down on their efforts to catch up but acknowledge having work to do with both younger students (who missed key reading instruction) and older students (who have failed to reclassify before high school). A bright spot in recent reclassification data — rates of reclassification for first graders are higher than ever.”
In a spot of bright news, researchers identified several developments that show promise for improving reclassification rates, including:
- Enrollment in universal transitional kindergarten — By bringing students into the classroom system at a younger age, they gain access to a rich, language-based curriculum and may possibly receive English language development services earlier.
- Reading difficulty assessment requirements — All kindergarten children will be screened using a reading difficulty assessment starting in the 2025–26 school year, which researchers could help lead to more accurate and timely identification of challenges with reading and potential learning disabilities while also properly identifying learning difficulties separately from lags in learning English for second-language learners.
- Inclusion of long-term English learners (LTELs) on the California School Dashboard — The state has now started monitoring LTEL progress for school accountability purposes, which the report suggests will help highlight the needs of these students and help districts track their numbers and progress.
PPIC provided a handful of recommendations for state and local policymakers to mitigate the myriad challenges detailed in the report. Among them:
- The California Department of Education (CDE) should help parents and educators monitor reclassification rates by publishing those data as they had prior to 2021–22.
- The State Board of Education should encourage districts to automate reclassification decisions, standardize reclassification decisions and provide opportunities for reclassification multiple times a year — each time new results [e.g., Initial English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC), Basic Skills, teacher evaluations] are available.
- As districts implement the reading difficulty screener, administrators should help teachers identify and target EL students with reading challenges early, with an eye towards avoiding LTEL status (and avoiding misdiagnosis of special education status).
