5 KEY LEARNINGS FROM PON'S ENGLISH LEARNER CAMPAIGN AND NEXT STEPS en español

Why this is important: California enrolls 5.8 million students, with 19% or 1.1 million identified as English learners (ELs) and 2 million identified as ever-English learners including students that have reclassified. According to Data Quest's 2022-2023 report, 45.5% of ever-ELs reclassified and 11.1% became Long Term English Learners (LTELs), with another 7.1% of students identified "at-risk" of becoming LTELs. These numbers tell a mixed story about how English language instruction is serving EL students.

5 Key Learnings

From 20220-2023, PON worked with parents, students, and administrators from three school districts to advance the interests of ELs. School systems have slowly improved for ELs and student performance is returning to pre-pandemic levels, but student needs also dramatically increased during this time. While we acknowledge districts are making progress and taking steps in the right direction, it will be difficult to achieve and sustain students’ outcomes without strong partnerships with families as illustrated in these five learnings:

Educators need more support now to understand all the EL requirements and how to implement these effectively, including the EL Road Map. When it comes to monitoring student academic progress, we found ineffective feedback loops to be responsible for a major disconnect between families and schools regarding the academic performance of EL students. Most parents of ELs are not even aware their children are identified as such, and monitoring progress is nearly impossible due to digital barriers and schools not reviewing student data with parents. Students themselves are not fully aware of whether they are English learners or have been reclassified. When educators help ELs understand the ELPAC, their scores improve. The current reclassification criteria establish too many requirements to be met within one school year, with too much variation in implementation across LEAs. A major problem is only one of these four criteria is standardized.  Supporting LTELs to reclassify is an ongoing challenge for districts.

Recommendations

Let's begin by fully and transparently sharing and discussing student data with parents at every grade level. Parents shouldn't need to rely on nonprofits to learn if their children are ELs and how to monitor student progress.

"Is it really that hard to know if a student is proficient in English?" is a question parents and students asked. It shouldn't be. Engaging all educational partners in improving the reclassification policy and its implementation is long overdue and we must do it now before another school year comes and goes.

5 Key Learnings Brief

Report Summary and EL Data

Presentation on 7/7/2023 - 9 to 10 am

REACTIONS AND NEXT STEPS

"Parents are uninformed and lost. The few parents who do know their children are ELs is because they have invested their time in the ELAC and DELAC committees hoping to receive enough support and information to get them ahead. In the end, the information ends up being limited and they don’t really understand its meaning. Educators spend time preparing and providing information that they think is important to parents. They use education terminology at their level, without making sure parents have understood the message. Learning is meaningful and effective when explained in a basic way and especially when it is practiced with simple exercises. If educators would invest more time, energy, and resources to transition from one-way to two-way communication strategies, everyone would benefit so much more from their work." Maria Rosales, Program Director

"It is imperative that we change the practice of omitting information and avoiding discussions on student proficiency with parents. This practice misleads and misinforms parents about where their English learner child sits on the reclassification timetable, delays the EL student’s language development and places the future of English learners at risk. Parents can help reverse the decline in public education we’ve seen in recent years by working with schools to better meet the needs of ELs. Now more than ever, parents and teachers must establish two-way communication and partnerships to increase attendance, address mental health needs, and support student learning." Araceli Simeón

What is next for PON?  We will continue engaging parents and educators in an awareness campaign to help parents become adept at monitoring the academic progress of EL students and locate resources to support overall student well-being and success. This phase of our work will include communications, outreach, and leveraging and growing our network to reach more families. Stay tuned on ways you or your organization can join this effort. We welcome your participation!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Funding for this publication and our 4 ELS program was provided through the generous support of Sobrato Philanthropies, Alliance for a Better Community, California Community Foundation, The California Endowment, United Way of Greater Los Angeles, and Amity Foundation for Los Angeles County.

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For information visit our website at http://www.parentnetwork-la.org PON is a project of Community Partners