Deconstructing the English Learner Gap
Dr. Marcus Winters and Dr. Yasuko Kanno use longitudinal data from fifth and ninth grade English Learners (ELs) and their peers from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to understand the extent to which the difference in a variety of later educational outcomes for ELs and non-ELs are explained by student demographic characteristics, the quality of schools that students attend, and prior academic proficiency.
Project Resources
Working Paper
Project Summary
English learners (ELs), multilingual students who are developing grade-level English language proficiency, on average have substantially lower test scores and levels of educational attainment than non-ELs. This “EL -gap” is commonly assumed to derive from the students’ lack of English proficiency or from insufficient language services. Dr. Marcus Winters and Dr. Yasuko Kanno use longitudinal data, provided by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, from fifth and ninth grade ELs and their peers to understand the extent to which the difference in later educational outcomes for ELs and non-ELs are explained by student demographic characteristics, the quality of schools that students attend, and prior academic proficiency.
Key Findings
Winters and Yasuko show that characteristics unrelated to language proficiency explain the vast majority of the EL gap. On several measures, students who were classified as ELs in the fifth grade achieve similar or even better educational outcomes than do observationally similar non-ELs. For students classified as ELs in ninth- grade, some small gaps in educational attainment remain even after accounting for other characteristics.
Implications and Recommendations
First, the findings point to the importance of creating like comparison groups for measuring EL performance and attainment gaps. When districts or states assess whether ELs are underachieving relative to their peers, the relevant comparison group should be non-ELs who come from similar racial/ethnic and supplemental educational services backgrounds. Second, in addition to providing language supports, policymakers seeking to improve ELs’ educational outcomes should consider strategies and interventions that address the challenges that ELs share with racial/ethnic minority students living in low-income households.