High School Credits for ELLs Still a Challenge

Innovations sought on road to diploma.

When Maria Piedra, then 16, moved with her family from Mexico to Texas in the mid-1980s, she was placed in the 6th grade. She had completed 9th grade in Mexico—and had a transcript to prove it—but officials of the Donna, Texas, schools seemed only to care that she didn’t speak English.

“I didn’t have a choice,” recalled Ms. Piedra, who is now a reading coach for the 14,000-student Donna Independent School District. “Being 16 in 6th grade, where everyone was 10 or 11 years old, ... it was depressing. I cried.”

Such rigid policies have changed in Donna and elsewhere, with immigrant students getting credit in many places for their work in their native countries. But state and district policymakers nationwide still struggle with how best to award credits to adolescent English-language learners from other countries and help them gain access to the high...