This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The majority of English learner students in Los Angeles Unified district schools failed to meet state math and reading standards in the latest round of assessments, prompting parents to call for better communication with their children’s schools, according to a new report.

In 2018-19, just 11.5% of English learner students met or exceeded state English Language standards, compared to 50.43% of all LAUSD students. Just 12.4% of English learner students met or exceeded state math standards, while 39% of all students met or exceeded math standards, according to California state education department data.

“English learners in the district are not performing at the level they should be … [they] are such an important subgroup for the district to consider … especially a group that is this large,” said Jeimee Estrada-Miller, an author of the report, conducted by Loyola Marymount University, which found alarmed caregivers of English learner students want more communication and resources from their children’s schools.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, LAUSD has the highest number of English learners in the country, with more than 86,000 students classified in that category. Nearly half of all LAUSD students this year have been classified as English Learners at some point in their schooling.

According to the brief, more than half of LAUSD schools were performing “low” or “very low,” meaning that less than 35% of students at the school were advancing in English proficiency.

This chart shows the breakdown of how LAUSD schools are performing on English Learner progress. Just 4% of schools are in the “very high” category – meaning that 65% or more of the students at that school have moved up a level in English proficiency or are at the highest level of proficiency.

“These numbers are definitely alarming … but LAUSD is not an outlier… At baseline students need to become proficient in English before they show that they can master the material on these state tests,” Estrada-Miller said.

She called on newly-appointed LAUSD school superintendent Alberto Carvalho “to think about what practices the district should prioritize with English learners in mind.”

It is important for the district to prioritize students learning English first. Once students have proficiency in English, they usually begin to do better in other subjects that require access to the English language, Estrada-Miller said.

When English learner families say that they want feedback on their children’s work, they are particularly interested in their child’s progress in English language proficiency.

Right now, a majority of families receive feedback about their children from report cards, which are often too general and do not include specific progress toward English learning, Estrada-Miller said. “We see a grade on a report card, which is a lot about work completion … but English learner families need to know whether their kids are making progress towards learning English first… That is a milestone for English learner students to be able to access the rest of the curriculum.”

2. English Learner Families Want Personalized Communication From Schools

English learner families see the value in having more personalized communication from their schools.

“We were really surprised to see how many English learner families want home visits … that’s really as personal as it gets,” Estrada-Miller said. “I think this shows us that there is a desire for a real relationship with the school. A connection with school staff is even more important for English learner families. When language is a barrier, they want that personal touch.”

40% of English learner families prefer a personal phone call by a school staff member for updates on their child, whereas just 30% of non-English learner families prefer a phone call. 22% of English learner families said they prefer an in-person home visit from a staff member.

3. English Learner Families Want Schools to Function Like Communities

During the pandemic, many schools began providing extra services, such as meals and health care. High-needs families, including many English learner families, want this to continue even as the pandemic dies down, Estrada-Miller said.

“Schools are hubs for communities. It’s clear that people need more from their schools. English learner families want deeper infrastructure for schools to sustain these other roles, like child care, legal services, and mental health services.”

39% of English learner families ranked mental health services for their kids and themselves at school the highest priority for the district. 37% ranked academic support and tutoring services highest, and 35% most want non-academic after school programs.

English learner families are already showing up to school events and extra programming in large numbers. 86% of English learner families polled said that they participated in school activities at least once a month.

“Families are already showing up and they want schools to take on a bigger role … the question is really can we build the infrastructure?” Estrada-Miller said. “Can schools get the ongoing funding to support those types of services so that they function more like community schools?”

Newly-appointed LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho targeted the need to engage vulnerable students such as English learners in his 100 day plan with a parent academy and a new attendance strategy. The district’s chief academic officer,  Alison Yoshimoto-Towery, said LAUSD is currently providing resources for English learners such as tutoring, counseling, small group work and personalized family meetings to discuss students’ progress on learning English. 

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Rebecca Katz is a recent graduate of the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism Masters Program and a Los Angeles native. She received her bachelors in English literature and political science from USC. She is passionate about mental health and education reform. 

One of the corollaries of this general dynamic is that the country’s education leaders also struggle to respond rapidly to changes in their schools.

This is particularly clear when it comes to multilingual students. These dual language learners (DLLs) are amongst the fastest-growing demographic groups in U.S. schools, but schools—and policymakers—have generally been slow to react.

It’s easy to see this as a failure, and push for reforms that might help. We know, for instance, that these DLLs do better when schools support the development of their native languages while teaching them English. Research shows that various forms of multilingual education work better than English-immersion for these kids. Stands to reason that we should update “English-only” laws to provide more multilingual instruction, right?

Well, yes. But as my co-authors and I argue in a just-published paper, Multilingual Paraprofessionals: An Untapped Resource for Supporting American Pluralism,

(It) is no simple matter to switch large numbers of classrooms from monolingual (“English-only”) to multilingual instruction (sometimes called “English Plus”). It is essentially impossible to expand access to multilingual instruction without training and hiring more multilingual teachers. As noted above, just one in eight Pre-K–12 teachers speaks a non-English language at home. Over half of states (and half of major urban districts) report shortages of bilingual or English as a Second Language teachers. The overwhelmingly monolingual language profile of the teaching force means that American schools are similarly English-dominant. In short, the U.S. needs more multilingual adults to decide to become teachers.

This isn’t a complicated principle. Laws without means to implement them are just outlines of wishes, dreams, and priorities. Say we wanted each U.S. high school to launch no fewer than two satellites into geosynchronous orbit each year. We’d write that into the law, but we’d also send some rocket fuel, aluminum, and some microchips (at least). Otherwise, we’d just end up with a bunch of glorified bottle rockets spluttering around on thousands of plywood launchpads.

Say we wanted every elementary school to teach students to ride a bicycle by second grade. We’d buy some bikes (as the D.C. Public Schools did). Otherwise, we might as well just mandate jogging around the school parking lot. Or games of Duck-Duck-Goose.

It’s no different with bilingual education. While it’s a good thing to change laws to allow more languages into U.S. classrooms, that’s just a start. We also need to recruit, prepare, and retain more multilingual teachers. These teachers are a scarce resource. While more than 1-in-5 U.S. students speaks a non-English language at home, fewer than 1-in-10 U.S. teachers say the same.

If only we had a pool of multilingual adults with instructional experience and the language skills necessary to support DLLs’ native language development! If only…

And hey, it just so happens that we might! Around 1-in-5 U.S. paraprofessionals — the classroom assistants or teacher’s aides who give students specialized instruction or support — speak a non-English language at home. Our paper surveys research showing that many of these educators have most—or all—of the credentials that they need to become full-time U.S. teachers.

Many have appropriate credentials, strong literacy and speaking skills in their native tongues, confident English abilities, unique cultural connections to DLLs’ families, and—most importantly—considerable experience as classroom instructors.

Unfortunately, some of these paraprofessionals can’t make it to the front of their schools’ classrooms as lead teachers because they lack a handful of required higher education courses that they can’t access or afford. Others have the requisite degrees, but can’t get licensed because their educational experience is predominantly developed in their native languages, and they struggle to demonstrate their expertise on their state’s teacher licensure exams. Others have trouble navigating complicated bureaucratic requirements that impose undue time or resource barriers on them.

So look, remember what I said at the outset: folks all over the education debate overestimate the power—and importance—of policy wins. Because of local control, states’ rights, and various other aspects of U.S. federalism, most policy changes don’t actually matter for most American classrooms.

It’s difficult to pass big and effective education legislation here, but it’s even tougher to follow up a hard-won policy victory with a coordinated strategy for ensuring that a law’s new goals actually translate into changes at the classroom and school levels.

My team is going to continue looking into this. Our paper is the first in a series of publications on multilingual teacher pathways that New America will be releasing over the next several years. And data on multilingual paraprofessionals suggest that the country absolutely can meet this challenge—and thereby improve DLLs’ educational opportunities—but it’s going to take serious, intentional efforts to help these educators become fully licensed teachers.

The number of dual language learners in U.S. schools will continue growing for many years yet — the best way to help these future workers, homebuyers, taxpayers, veterans, and citizens succeed is to support their development in English and their native languages. But as policymakers, educators, and voters weigh the merits of policies that would expand access to multilingual instruction, they should also be thinking about how we can find and develop the teachers we’ll need to make those policies meaningful for kids.

It turns out that they might not have to look any further than the paraprofessionals waiting in the “wings” of their own classrooms.

Conor P. Williams is a senior researcher in New America’s Education Policy Program and founder of its Dual Language Learners National Work Group. Williams is a former first-grade teacher who holds a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University, a Master of Science for Teachers from Pace University, and a B.A. in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College. He has two young children and an extremely patient wife.

This article was published in partnership with The74Million.org.

LAUSD report on A through G completion rates.

There is a wide gulf of disparity when it comes to the performance of races and subgroups in LA Unified’s A through G completion and graduation rates, but these groups have come a long way and are doing better than ever before.

Recent district reports breaking down the graduation rate as it heads into the final six weeks of the school year show 68 percent of seniors are currently on track to complete their A-G courses with all D’s or better. A-G completion is a key component required for graduation and is being implemented for the first time this year. The courses are required for acceptance into California’s public universities, although C’s are needed to qualify.

Due to a $15 million credit recovery program that has signed up thousands of students to retake courses after school, on weekends and over holiday breaks, the district has predicted the graduation rate could rise as high as a record 80 percent. But peeling back the layers of the 68 percent mark reveals other numbers that are troubling yet familiar, as African-Americans, Latinos, English learners, foster students and students with disabilities are far behind their peers on A-G completion.

“The racial disparities in achievement and discipline have been consistently on the front burner. It means we need more support, it means we need to have more personalization and it means that you can’t just do more of the same,” said board member Monica Garcia, who is a strong advocate for the A-G standards. “I think it is about a system learning how to succeed with all populations, and LA Unified has more to do.”

Despite the disparities, the district has made big strides over the years when it comes to race and subgroup performance. According to a UCLA report from 2013, 21 percent of African-American high school students were on track with A-G courses in 2008, compared to 59 percent today. Latino students had a 24 percent on track rate then, compared to 67 percent today. English learners had an overall 9 percent on track status, compared to 29 percent for long-term learners and 24 percent for short-term learners today.

Asian students and white students, who are outpacing their peers today, have also made significant strides. Asians have gone from 58 percent on track in 2008 to 83 percent today, and white students have gone from 45 percent to 74 percent. Overall the district had made progress in all students who are getting C’s or better in all A-G classes, from 18 percent in 2005 to 48 percent as of March 7.

When asked about the low performance of African-American students on A-G, LA Unified Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson said the district is taking various steps to help those students and new data coming soon will show that more African-American students from LA Unified are getting into college than ever before.

“We are working with UCLA on a really strong collaborative, and we have seen our numbers increase with our connective efforts around culturally proficient teaching and pedagogy. We have also done some partnering with the College Board and our partners at UCLA making sure we are developing that college-going culture,” Gipson said. “This year we have a record number of students getting into UCLA and our historically black colleges. Those numbers should be out soon.”

She added, “We are doing some intentional practice and research and study and learning from what is working best in our field for our learners.”

LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer at a recent board meeting said the district is focused on bringing more equity to all its students.

“I’ve said this before and want to continue to emphasize that we are striving to bridge the education gap between the haves and the have-nots and give every student a path to quality education and graduation. That remains the civil rights struggle of our day,” he said.

The district’s 141,000-plus English learners remain among the biggest challenge when it comes to A-G because some of the courses essentially require English fluency.

“We have seen a lot of autonomy given to local districts and schools to figure [racial disparities] out. The other groups that are really struggling are English learners, they are not even really eligible to take those A-G courses,” said Sara Mooney, an education program associate at United Way of Greater Los Angeles, which has advocated for the district to keep the A-G standards. “There is a big concern, even though there is differentiated instruction and a lot to of autonomy, we really need to see a greater push for some racial equity and some real supports for African-American students and for English learners.”

The researchers — Joseph Robinson-Cimpian of the University of Illinois and Karen Thompson of Oregon State — examined the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) where California’s English-language proficiency exam became more difficult in 2007, making it harder for students who were considered English learners to be “reclassified” as fluent. The change meant that on average students spent more time considered English learners and receiving the support services associated with that status. The state made the test more vigorous in response to educators’ concerns that students learning English were being reclassified too soon.

The authors found that high school students who narrowly passed the old test and stopped receiving the language services — such as courses specifically designed for students learning English with teachers certified to support English learners — had lower test scores over time and were less likely to graduate, compared with those who narrowly failed the test and thus retained those services.

But when the new policy was enacted — that is, when it became harder to pass the English proficiency exam — these effects disappeared; there were no differences in outcomes for students who just hit or just missed the cut-off. The authors say that this suggests LAUSD’s new policy is preferable because it means students are less likely to stop receiving language support services before they are ready.

“From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that although reclassification can have adverse effects on students, policymakers can realign criteria to ensure more successful transitions,” the authors stated. This means that efforts to shorten the time that students learning English receive support services — for instance, a 1998 voter-passed referendum in California — should be approached with caution.

In an interview, study author Robinson-Cimpian said the he wouldn’t generalize the results beyond LAUSD, but said schools and districts should not remove English learner status before it’s clear students are ready. This might mean making it more challenging to pass the language proficiency test, as California did.

No impact on lower grades

Interestingly, the more difficult exam didn’t impact elementary or middle school students’ performance. That may be because formal classification statuses did not really affect how students were taught in the classroom, according to the authors. In most cases students remain in the same class, taught by the same teacher, even after they’re deemed proficient in English.

In comparison, high school students’ classification in some cases determines which courses they take.

“In high school [English learners] are often tracked into a variety of separate courses, including both [English-language development] courses and [English learner] only courses,” the authors wrote. This might explain why, in high school, the timing of when students changed statuses made a significant difference.

In a statement, Kathy Hayes and Hilda Maldonado of LAUSD’s Multilingual and Multicultural Education Department, said they weren’t surprised by the results of the study. “We fully support the idea that assessment, curricula and services provided to English learners be in alignment,” they said.

This article was published in partnership with The74Million.org.

The report, “Success for English Learners in Charter Schools,” found that throughout the state, independent charter schools are serving nearly 2 percent more English learner (EL) students than traditional schools.

And, in LAUSD, autonomous charter schools serve 1 percent more EL students than traditional schools do, according to the report.

“There is a misconception that the charter schools are not serving the hardest to reach students, particularly in urban communities, and this report shows that’s not true,” said Jason Mandell, spokesman for the charter association. “This shows that the California charters are serving the EL community better.”

Scores analyzed included those from the Academic Performance Index (API), Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAO) and the California English Language Development Test (CELDT).

Francisco Rodriguez, vice president of the California Federation of Teachers and member of the English Language Learners Committee, said it is not surprising that some EL scores are better at charter schools, but he also points to increasingly higher scores of EL students at independent schools.

“It is not a surprise that a charter school that comes into a community specifically helps English language learners and the results of their scores are a little higher,” said Rodriguez, who works in Watsonville and Pajaro Valley in Santa Cruz County, where schools are 80 to 90 percent Hispanic with up to 24 percent EL students. He said that some of the report’s findings do not comport with what he has discovered in his community.

“The strategies they are using seem the same in the charter schools and independent schools, so I’m not really sure why test scores would be different,” he said. “But ultimately, if (traditional) schools received all the funding they needed from the state, there would be better results all around.”

Rodriguez mentioned that some charter schools require a level of parent volunteerism, which some EL families cannot provide because of multiple jobs by working parents.

The CCSA said it doubts that the parent volunteerism requirement is much of a problem.

The report says many families of EL children have misconceptions about charter schools, thinking they are hard to get into or are expensive. But, the report contends that when the families have good word-of-mouth in a community, the charter school’s EL enrollment thrives.

Overall, the report supported two major findings:

• Across several data sources and over several years, EL student performance is higher at charter schools. While some of the differences were modest, the consistency of this finding was striking.
• In general, EL enrollments are lower at charter schools than at comparable traditional public schools. However, different disaggregations (by charter type, urban-rural, grade level and region) show varying sizes in the gap (with the gap closed in some instances).

Senator Ricardo Lara

Since the late 1990s the debate over bilingual education in California has been, ¿como se dice . . . controversial?  And it seems it’s an issue voters will be taking up again soon.

State Senator Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens, has proposed new legislation to overturn Proposition 227, a 1998 initiative that banned bilingual education in public schools.

“English will always remain the official language of California, but we cannot ignore the growing need to have a multilingual workforce,” Lara said in announcing his measure.

Lara’s bill, SB1174, would put the question to voters once again, as an initiative on the November 2016 ballot. It would effectively repeal Prop. 227, giving parents the option of enrolling their children in bilingual education or dual immersion programs.

“In an increasingly interconnected global economy, we have to prepare our students for a future in which their success depends not only on an ability to understand diverse perspectives and cultures, but also on an ability to communicate in different languages,” said Lara.

As it’s written now, the law requires classes to be taught in English, with a few exceptions. Limited English-proficient students are given no more than a year to learn the language before transitioning into English-only classes. However, districts are required to offer bilingual classes if the parents of 20 students of a given grade at a school submit a waiver.

Still, since passage of Prop 227, enrollment in bilingual classes has plummeted to detrimental effects.

“Extensive research has shown that students who build strong biliteracy skills (in English and one or more other languages) have higher academic success, a foundation for increased salary earnings, and stronger cognitive skills as they grow older,” Jan Gustafson-Corea CEO of the California Association for Bilingual Education said in a press release supporting Lara’s bill.

But the Silicon Valley businessman Ron Unz, who sponsored the 1998 initiative, says science is on his side. He told Capital Public Radio, early studies of the ban showed impressive results.

“In the first three or four years after Prop 227 passed, the academic performance of over a million immigrant students roughly doubled,” he says.

The Senate Education Committee will hold a hearing on SB 1174 on April 23.