Measures of change: the demography and literacy of adolescent English learners

Who are immigrant students and students who do not speak English well? Where are they from? What is their family background (social, economic, linguistic, etc.)? How well do they do in school? Are they developing the literacy needed to take part in higher education and a skilled workforce? This report attempts to answer these questions for the US case by creating a demographic profile of English learners and by examining their literacy levels, as measured by their reading and math performance on state and federal standardised tests.

Key findings of the report include: 

• LEP (limited English proficient) population growth outpaces the general student population 
• LEP population growth varies dramatically by state 
• fifty-seven percent of LEP adolescents nationwide are US born 
• seventy percent of LEP students in grades 6–12 speak Spanish

The authors recommend to: 

• re-examine whether Census data accurately capture the LEP population 
• examine how varying state exclusion rates of ELL students affect National Center for Education Statistics results 
• explore the literacy trajectories of former LEP students 
• document how states vary in their testing and monitoring practices for ELL (English language learner) students whose parents opt out of language instruction services 
• leverage the research opportunities that multi-state English proficiency tests offer for analysing ELL outcomes
  

In addition, and more broadly, the authors recommend: 

• state adoption of a common definition of LEP status 
• expanded study of ELL performance in schools, disaggregating results in ways that capture the heterogeneity of the population (by generation, time in the United States, interrupted schooling, literacy in the native language) 
• increased support for longitudinal studies that capture the differing trajectories of ELLs and former ELLs in US schools